Hearing praise from a fan of the NewsOK app & a fan of the Barons
Sports writer/columnist/reporter/expert/personality Berry Tramel shared this email with me last week:
Can’t thank you enough for the newsok app. Living in South Carolina, it brings me in touch with what’s happening in news and sports (mostly sports for me) back home. I was hoping you could pass it along to the necessary powers to maybe add a button for The Barons news. I’m a hockey fan and would like to read any articles written by the sports staff. Thanks for the time.
The customer was referring to the NewsOK iPhone app. We’ve had it for about a year and a half, and it’s definitely an experience meant for our NewsOK enthusiasts. It’s a steady stream of news headlines separated by many different topics.
Here’s just a bit of background on that topic. The constant stream of headlines on the NewsOK app is a departure from our app for The Oklahoman — those are meant for edition-based prioritized headlines that a reader of The Oklahoman might enjoy.
Two different apps. Two different experiences.
Regardless of all that, this reader really likes the NewsOK app, and that’s good. And I appreciated his feedback about the Barons headlines. That was a simple oversight. It’s there now.
Continue to enjoy the NewsOK app … or the mobile website … or The Oklahoman app … or NewsOK.com … or The Oklahoman Print Replica. It doesn’t really matter to us. We just want to find the best way to deliver news and information to you.
Sports, nDepths and Halliburton executives dominate last full week of August on NewsOK
A blank blog post for about 15 hours
Thank goodness for moms. At a family gathering last weekend, the No. 1 reader of this blog reported that last week’s blog post was blank — as in empty …. nothing to read at all except for a catchy headline. I called up the blog post on the computer and saw that her report was accurate. I’m not sure how that happened. I do know that I made some changes (fixing typos) Friday night on my iPad. I must have pushed the wrong button. Luckily, WordPress has a nice version history of all posts, and I was able to retrieve what was there on Friday night. Whew!
NewsOK.com is hiring
I’m hiring a web editor position. We recently lost a good hand. It’s a shame. But we understand that not everyone spends their entire career here. There are plenty of opportunities for career growth for good people, even when times are tough in the news publishing business. But with every loss comes great opportunity, so we’re looking for a web editor that can do a wide variety of things to help us grow: “NewsOK.com is looking for a web editor to work closely with our online sports initiatives and our sports department. We need a journalist skilled in social media, blogging, content curation, industry technology and trends and solid news judgment to connect with our audience and continue our aggressive digital media efforts. Contact aherzberger@opubco.com.”
OHP sex scandal page
We launched a new Ongoing Coverage page last week amid the series of stories covering the case of Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Patrick Venable. Venable is charged with second-degree rape after being accused of taking a woman into custody in the early morning hours of June 20 and then driving her to her house in Guthrie to have sex. Venable’s next court appearance is set for Sept. 22. On our ongoing coverage page, you can see all the previous stories on this case and read the court and read the affidavit that led to the charges.
Fighting Back – a new nDepth
We launched a new nDepth special presentation this week that is intended to be the first in a series of nDepth specials titled “Fighting Back.” The first one was a story about Reggie Whitten, who has started several non-profit organizations during the past few years after the death of his son Brandon. In this nDepth piece, Jenni Carlson shares Whitten’s story about Brandon’s addiction and eventual death – and how he turned that tragedy into a life spent trying to help others in the world. It’s a powerful story.
Berry’s take on Perkins
Berry Tramel had a Berry-like take on the recent Kendrick Perkins controversy that we reported on last week (and I blogged about in my previous post). From Berry: “What a crock. Hey, Gran Torino, let me tell you what Clint Eastwood would not do in this kind of situation. He wouldn’t hide behind some shill. If he felt he was wronged, he would say so. Or at least, keep quiet and not let anyone else do his talking for him.” We’ve really had all sides of this story covered. Now we’re just waiting on the truth to come out.
Happy iPad customer No. 1
I received an email this week from a longtime newspaper subscriber who now gets the edition every day on his iPad. This customer is a perfect example of a traditional newspaper reader who has transitioned to a digital device as his lifestyle has changed. He was patient and pleasant, but he couldn’t get an edition to download on Tuesday morning. After a quick email exchange (I handed him off to our customer service specialist for digital products), the problem was fixed. We don’t have many problems with customers trying to get an edition or get connected, when we do, we’re happy to help as quickly as we can.
Happy iPad customer No. 2
I spoke with my brother-in-law last weekend. He lives in Springdale, Ark., and reported that he is a new subscriber to The Oklahoman on his iPad device. This customer is a perfect example of a non-traditional newspaper reader who has connected with us because of his new device. He didn’t read the newspaper daily when he lived in town, but he’s always been a digital news consumer. The Oklahoman’s iPad app is a great way to stay informed, especially as it relates to Oklahoma. He’s interested in staying informed about his former state. So because of technology and our development, he’s a new customer. That makes us happy.
Community blogs
We recently launched a community blogs page that has links to a lot of Oklahoma bloggers (45 of them, to be exact). Some of the bloggers are hosted within the NewsOK blogging community, but others are doing their own thing. We link to them as well. I’ve always known the blogging community is Oklahoma is strong, but having dozens of them in one place really helps get around the community quickly. If you’re a blogger, but don”t see yours on here, let me know. I expect that we will add many more in the next week or so.
Travis Haney is on campus
Our new OU football reporter Travis Haney started this week. And judging by his first two blog posts about his tour of the OU campus and his memories of the great Pat Summit, we’re in for a treat on his daily reports and musings about the OU football program. Check them out. Send him a note. And look for much more from Travis.
All-Access from ESPN
Speaking of the OU blog, Mike Baldwin is also covering the Sooners every day. This week, he had the rough assignment of watching television — something many OU fans surely watched as well. His breakdown — ESPN’s ‘All-Access, training Days With the Oklahoma Sooners’ is must-see TV — was helpful to me, especially since I’ve yet to see the program. Mike offered a series of notes about the show, and then said this: “The only negative for a reporter like myself is the media used to get this type of access years ago before college football coaches shut down watching practices. I miss those days. Not only did you get to see which backup players were close to being ready to contribute you saw more of the players’ personalties.”
Gina Mizell starts her gig with us
Staying with the sports theme this week (we are almost ready for football season, you know), check out the blog posts from the new OSU football reporter Gina Mizell. She opened up with an interesting comparison between the OSU football program and the Arizona State football program. She also talked about how she saw her first OSU practice. But her big introduction to us is this video with Berry Tramel from the OPUBCO Studios …
Most-viewed article
A Halliburton executive sipped from a cup of fracking fluid at an industry conference. We had an AP story on it, and Fark.com linked to it, driving the Halliburton executive takes a swig of fracking fluid article to the top of the list for articles this week on NewsOK.
Most-viewed blog post
Travis Haney’s aforementioned blog post about his experience with legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit was our most-viewed blog post this week.
Most-viewed photo gallery
For the second consecutive week, the gallery of the former OU quarterback Jimmy Harris has been the most-viewed photo gallery in our photo section. Jimmy keeps on winning.
Most-viewed video
An OU practice report from Tuesday was our most-viewed video this week:
This week on NewsOK: New apps, updated apps and everything from Bennie Owen to Kendrick Perkins
Serving another iPad experience
We launched our custom iPad application for The Oklahoman last October. I wrote about it plenty, and we received quite a bit of national notoriety for this application. Since the launch in Oct. 2010, we opened the subscriptions up for all subscribers to The Oklahoman, as well as offering a la carte subscriptions for $9.99 per month. But we also launched a different iPad app with a completely different experience in the past month or so. This one gives readers a page-by-page experience on their iPad. In other words, it acts as an interactive PDF of the newspaper edition. Since we launched it, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback. The one review we have in the App store says this: “This is exactly what reading the paper electronically SHOULD be like.” That user is a true believer, but others prefer the customized tablet experience we had already built. Us? We honestly don’t care which application you use. We are simply trying to provide the best digital experiences possible for our users who continue to move their reading habits to new devices. The Oklahoma Print Replica app is just another option for you. And it’s free to all subscribers of The Oklahoman.
A weekend of rowing
Last weekend was a big weekend for the Oklahoma River with the USRowing Master’s National Championships in town. We had the event covered with a series of stories, photo galleries and videos. Dave Morris did a stellar job with a video recap of the event on Sunday. And the blog post from photographer John Clanton was top notch. Of course, the photos galleries were probably the most popular element of the weekend (NewsOK readers absolutely love photos).
Growing Oklahoma Watch coverage
We launched a third Oklahoma Watch page recently. Oklahoma Watch, you might remember, is a “non-profit, investigative and in-depth reporting team that collaborates with other news organizations and higher education to produce journalism that makes a difference in the lives of Oklahomans.” We launched a page on NewsOK late in 2010 as we began our combined Women in Prison series with Oklahoma Watch. And recently, we started Oklahoma Watch pages on Tax Credits and on Immigration. It’s all found on our Oklahoma Watch page. But more than anything, it’s proof of what we think our role is here … the continued focus on serious issues is something that we at The Oklahoman and NewsOK are committed to.
The Kendrick Perkins saga
The Kendrick Perkins saga has been pretty interesting this week. It began on Saturday, when news from Beaumont, Texas, came out with information about Kendrick Perkins being arrested early that morning. It was a misdemeanor, but it didn’t look good. Jenni Carlson wrote a column about it, pointing out exactly how it didn’t look so good. “But to be an NBA player in your hometown doing a youth camp and raising money for life-skills and drug-awareness training for kids, to be arrested less than 24 hours after going to the hospital and being told to cool it, to blow off a charity game and a camp banquet to then go out to a club and get arrested, that is plain dumb.” Darnell Mayberry followed up with reports from the Perkins camp saying that he’s innocent and he wants to clear his name: “‘He was not drinking alcohol, nor was he intoxicated,’ said White, CEO and founder of EAG Sports Management. ‘Not one drop of alcohol Friday night. We’re not sure why they said Kendrick was intoxicated.‘ ” It’s interesting, and NewsOK will have it all covered. What else are we going to do … cover NBA games during a lockout?
This just in — I have a favorite app
I’ve had my iPad for about six months now. I love it. This week, I finally decided on my absolute favorite app. It’s one I downloaded months ago but never really used on a regular basis. This week, I opened the MLS MatchDay 2011 app and realized how much information it gave to soccer fans of the top U.S. league. Granted, I don’t follow the league that closely, but I casually follow what’s happening in Major League Soccer. And if central Oklahoma would have joined the league with a team in 2004 (check the NewsOK archives for history on that), I would have been following the league very closely. As it is, I just felt I should share that for its functionality and content, the MLS Match Day app is my favorite.
NewsOK TV video worth seeing each day
NewsOK TV is a show that Dave Morris and Angi Bruss have been doing for the past month or so. It’s always a great recap on what people are talking about every day.
Download our videos on NewsOK.tv app
Speaking of NewsOK TV, I highly recommend finding and downloading our NewsOK TV app for your iPhone. We updated the app with new functionality on Aug. 10, and it’s definitely worth a look. Check out the iTunes app store for the latest upgrade. It’s all you need to see every video that we produce at NewsOK.
A trip through The Oklahoman archives
Bennie Owen
I received this question from a NewsOK user this week: “I’m looking for an article … that was printed in 1969. Do you know if the online paid subscription archive would go back that far. Thank you for your time.” My answer: “I would recommend using our archives for The Oklahoman. We should have everything you are looking for dating back to 1901. The link is available on the NewsOK home page sub-navigation.” The Oklahoman’s archives are a real treasure that are sometimes overlooked. Just for fun, I did a quick search for Bennie Owen (I wanted to be sure I could find some I ended up with a long list of stories. After all, Bennie Owen is a legendary football coach at OU and the namesake of the field at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Here is just one item I found – a notes column from Charles J. Brill that included a passionate plea to make Owen the athletic director at the school. I love reading old columns from our archives. You’d enjoy it, too.
‘Know it’ all about the state quarterbacks
We launched two new know it pages this week in preparation for the football season. You can now read everything you need to know about OU quarterback Landry Jones and OSU quarterback Brandon Weeden. We can only hope there’s no know it curse, though. Two years ago, we launched pages for Sam Bradford and Zach Robinson. Bradford was injured in the first game. Robinson’s numbers fell short of legendary ‘know it’ status. We wish better ‘know it’ luck to Jones and Weeden.
Most-viewed video
Get ready for a steady diet of Berry Tramel and college football. We start with the most-viewed video this week:
Most-viewed article
The most-viewed article this week was Berry Tramel’s column about the Sooners and their future conference affiliation: OU wants no part of the SEC.
Most-viewed blog
Berry led the blog charge this week. This was also about college football: Big 12 football: Houston is no solution.
Most-viewed photo gallery
The gallery is more than a week old, but it still was popular this week. It was the photo gallery we created to go with our obituary of legendary OU quarterback Jimmy Harris. It should be noted, of course, that the primary column that the gallery was linked to was Berry Tramel’s column: The quarterback who never lost.
Helping people locate items in the debris
The day after the May 24 tornadoes, we launched a page on Facebook to help people find and share missing items found as debris was sent across the state.
We called it “Oklahoma Storms Lost and Found,” and the feedback we’ve received has been tremendous.
Just a couple days ago, we received this message from a user who shared a photo on the page:
i just wanted to thank you … the owner recognized it and i have returned it to them. what a wonderful service. this family lost everything and had only five photographs in the destruction. i am thrilled that i could get it back to them.
And that’s why we built the page. In this case, it wasn’t about driving traffic to our site. It was truly about trying to help people connect using the tools on the web.
NewsOK and auto-play videos
I received a question the other day:
1. Why does NewsOK.com auto-play the videos that accompany the news stories? I can’t think of any other news website that does that.
2. Why is there not an option available for the site visitor to toggle auto-play on and off?
3. Had there been discussion or thought to make videos not auto-load or click to play only?
Fair questions. We’ve been asked before. It’s something some users prefer we would change, but we don’t get as many comments about auto-play videos as we do about other functionality on our site (like, say, commenting, for example).
Here was my response:
1: The auto-play has been our most effective way to expose that content to users. In many cases the video tells the story better than the text, and the auto-play feature allows us to put that content in front of the user.
2 & 3: We’re always discussing various functionality and possible changes on our site. But to my knowledge, we have no plans to make a change at this time.
I can say a little more about that here in the blog (I never want to get too wordy in an email) …
We understand that some users see the auto-play function as mildly inconvenient and maybe even highly annoying. Pausing the video when it starts to play automatically does require another click of the mouse. But the fact is that we want those videos to play for our users as much as we possibly can. We can’t really apologize for that.
The decision we’ve made early on about auto-play for our videos goes back a few years.
First of all, we created the video. We think it adds to the story we’re telling. We want people to watch it.
Secondly, we want our advertisers who purchase pre-roll on our videos to get in front of our users. That’s important, as well. That’s one way we can help fund the work we’re trying to do.
The bottom line is this … NewsOK is a highly respected news website in our industry. As I’ve met and spoken with colleagues and other industry leaders around the country in the past decade, I’m always amazed at how many smart people recognize and admire our site.
But if there’s one piece of our operation that we’re known for more than anything else, it’s our investment in video — the in-house studios, the talent, the equipment and the commitment to the story-telling techniques on our website.
We’re proud of that commitment. So, for now, we’re showcasing our videos inside articles by automatically playing them when the article loads.
A question from the audience … Are we on Android devices?
I received this email from a user over the weekend:
“I was curious is there are any plans to expand your digital offerings to Android based devices?”
The answer? I’ll just repeat it here:
“We do have a NewsOK app for $0.99 for Android devices. We also have an app for The Oklahoman (daily downloadable editions) available for Android devices. You should find those in your various Android app stores.“
Two weeks worth of NewsOK memories
I missed last week. Thanks to everyone for all the messages of concern when my weekly blog didn’t appear on NewsOK. Wait, let me count all the messages of concern I received … hang on … carry the zero … yes, that’s right … Zero. That’s how many concerned messages I received. It doesn’t matter now, because I have two weeks worth of highlights from NewsOK.com. Enjoy.
‘A Thousand Hail Marys’
All notes about the great things to see on NewsOK in the past couple weeks have to start with Kelly Fry’s nDepth piece about her son’s fight with addiction. We’ve done some excellent nDepth pieces in the past three years, but this is undoubtedly the best. I urge you to read it and watch the video. But it doesn’t take much urging. If you start, you’ll finish.
A special PDF presentation
We also took the opportunity to put together a special PDF version of this story that we marketed to our iPad subscribers. The PDF is best viewed in the iBooks application on iPads, but it’s also viewable on any computer. The design from Art Director Todd Pendleton is outstanding.
Drug deaths covered this week
On the same day that we released the “A Thousand Hail Marys to Florida” piece, a story broke about a woman’s death after ingesting a designer drug. Several others were hospitalized. On Friday afternoon, we learned that a second man died after spending days in the hospital. It’s a sad story that we developed throughout the week. Then, on Wednesday night, we posted the 911 call from the night on May 7. It’s just further proof about how drug abuse and drug addiction affects every community.
An official iPad convert
I spent an hour Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and The Oklahoman, as I do on most every weekend morning. But this weekend was a bit different. It was just my second weekend as an iPad owner. Before I bought my own iPad, I used one of OPUBCO’s devices during the week. That convinced me to buy my own. In the weeks since I received my iPad, I’ve tossed my large portfolio notebook in the trash and I stopped dragging my laptop home every night. I’ve even stopped using the family iMac we bought earlier this year. Almost everything is easier on the iPad. And yes … I now spend my weekend mornings with a cup coffee and my iPad edition of The Oklahoman. But here’s the kicker … after I had set it down and moved along, I wanted to look something up about the Oklahoma City Thunder game against Memphis on Saturday. I picked up my iPad and started moving to the quickest way to find a story about it. Did I choose NewsOK.com on my Safari browser? Nope. I launched The Oklahoman app again. I found my story, read it and moved along. That’s was my ‘aha’ moment. There is indeed a future for packaged reading experiences like we have with The Oklahoman on the iPad. It’s easy, quick and already downloaded to my device. That’s not to say there’s not a future for NewsOK (I love NewsOK), but I understand why I pay to subscribe to The Oklahoman’s reading experience.
More kind words about our product
Speaking of the iPad edition, we received some kind feedback from a reader who recently bought an iPad and launched his subscription. Melissa Howell, a colleague that spends a good amount of her time editing the MOOD website, had the conversation with the esteemed reader. She shared it with me: “I love what you guys have done with the iPad. I am so hooked!”
Remembering May 3, 1999
Tuesday was May 3. That gave us an opportunity to send readers to our May 3 page that we built two years ago on the 10th anniversary of the devastating storm. I really like this site, because it does an excellent job of sharing the stories of the victims and what they remember from 10 years prior. The videos featured on this page never get old. And the stories they tell in the articles are mesmerizing. Schedule some time before clicking, though. You’ll want to browse a while on this page.
‘Hot Ink’ launches
Professionals in our newsroom volunteer their time to work with high school journalism students to produce an annual publication we call “Hot Ink.” We printed it a few weeks ago, and the website went live last week. You even saw a number of their completed articles in The Oklahoman on Sunday (May 1) as we showcased some of the young talent with a couple of inside pages of The Oklahoman. Carrie Coppernoll leads the group, and she does an outstanding job. Want proof? Just check out the Hot Ink website and read the articles. It’s worth your time.
A page full of interactive graphics
We have recently launched a page under our Multimedia main navigation that showcases the daily interactive graphics offered by The Associated Press. It’s really an interesting page to visit, because you get a little bit of everything. In just a few minutes, you can see everything about the death of Osama bin Laden to a live map of active wildfires in the country to a panoramic photos of the crown at the Royal Wedding last week. We started updating this page a few weeks ago, and we feel it’s ready for you to look at everything on it. Enjoy.
Courtroom fisticuffs
David Prater
What’s the old joke about attending a boxing match when a hockey game broke out? Well … reporter Nolan Clay went to cover a fist-fight, and a closing argument in a first-degree murder trial broke out. According to Nolan’s reports, Oklahoma Country District Attorney David Prater more than held his own after a convicted murderer took a cheap shot at him. This has to go directly into the “we-can’t-possibly-make-this-stuff-up” file. I’ll say it again. If this was a Hollywood movie script, I wouldn’t have believed it. But since Nolan reported it, I believe it.
Our users send message to bin Laden?
Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday (May 1). We learned about it on Sunday night. Our editors had it covered that night with a bunch of stories and photos and interactive elements. I’m proud of that. On Monday, we saw some elevated traffic, something I expected after such a big news event. But our biggest hour was at noon. That’s not normal. Our busiest hours on the site for traffic are generally in the morning. But maybe our users were up to something. At the end of the day, our traffic chart for Monday kind of made it look like our audience was intentionally sending a message to the recently deceased bin Laden. I’ll let you make the call.
Geronimo nDepth piece came in handy
The code word for the operation to get bin Laden was “Geronimo.” That sparked some discussion about the proper use of the Apache warrior’s name, and it sparked some outrage. Luckily, we created an nDepth — Stories of the Ages piece on Geronimo a couple of years ago. It’s great read, and it has a really good video with it. Since the nation was suddenly interested in Geronimo last week, we took that opportunity to make sure our readers were an informed as possible about his life.
Finishing in the top 7,500
Columnist Carrie Coppernoll ran the half-marathon on May 1. I wrote about how she wrote about her training as she prepared for the event, but her column after the event was a great read, as well. Carrie finished in the top 7,500 in that race. That’s infinitely better than I did. Good for her.
Loud and Proud Thunder fans
As long as the Oklahoma City Thunder are playing in the NBA Playoffs (we hope that’s for another couple of weeks), we will continue to encourage users to submit their photos that prove they are the craziest basketball fan on Oklahoma. Our rules stated that we will accept entries until the Thunder loses in the playoffs, but we had a glitch that opened voting for those that had entered. That made at least one participant angry. I can’t blame her for being angry. We corrected the glitch and tried to make the submission process even more clear. Bottom line … it’s not too late to enter the contest for your chance to win an iPad.
Thunder bandwagon
Speaking of the Oklahoma City Thunder, there is still plenty of room on the Thunder Bandwagon.
Live chats during Thunder games
And if you haven’t joined the the live chats that we’ve had during the Thunder playoff games, you should. Prop up your laptop next to you and see what our reporters and other fans in the chat are talking about as the plays are happening. It’s a great way to add to the experience of the game in your living room.
Election results
We had some elections in the state on Tuesday (May 10). And as we’ve done with all elections recently, we had complete results. That’s something other news sites just don’t do. We have a deep database of election results that we are continuing to find ways to enhance in the coming months.
Static from Norman Music Festival
I’ve written a lot about Static and George Lang’s trip to Austin for SXSW earlier this year. But a couple weeks ago, Static visited the Norman Music Festival, and the episodes are starting to find their way on the Static website. Check out Episode 45: Other Lives.
Most-viewed article
Since I didn’t post last week, this is a two-week honor. It goes to a story that went viral, thanks to a link from the Drudge Report website. “A mentally impaired Oklahoma City man was held down and shocked in the genitals with a stun gun April 17 while his attackers forcibly tattooed the word ‘RAPEST’ on his forehead.” Judging by our traffic, you read that story, but if you somehow missed it, click here.
Most-viewed video
You guessed it. The same story … this time in video format:
Most-viewed blog post
Bob Przybylo’s post about Manny Pacquiao led the blog charge this week. I was a little surprised, but a lot of users around the world were searching on Manny’s name, and Bob’s blog post ranked high for those users.
Most-viewed gallery
The photos from the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon on May 1 led the traffic for galleries on NewsOK. It’s been almost two weeks since we built that gallery. It’s definitely worth another look.
A week on NewsOK: Jumping off a building, a Thunder victory and a Royal Wedding
If your friends jumped off a cliff …
Two guys jumped off the under-construction Devon Tower on Sunday morning (it was so early that you might still consider it to be Saturday night). How did they get up there? Where did they land? Why would they do such a thing? Were they arrested? You have to read the story to find out all the answers. Actually, you might not get all the answers — the ‘why’ remains elusive. Regardless, we had a story on Sunday, and it was so popular that we left it in a prominent spot on the site on Monday.
Cram for the marathon
I led with this two weeks ago, but it’s worth mentioning again. The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is just a couple days away, so I have just one more chance to let you know about our page devoted to the event. We have an outstanding interactive piece, some great stories and a terrific blog from some OPUBCO employees that are running this year. I recommend checking it out this weekend.
A humble Mr. Lackmeyer
Steve Lackmeyer told his tale of becoming a social media superstar in his column this week: “On Sunday, I topped 2,000 followers, and I’m listed on 124 ‘news lists.’ Consider carefully that many of these folks know I’m a social media curmudgeon who joined the conversation kicking and screaming.” Steve wrote this column to admit publicly how wrong he was about the power and usefulness of social media. Steve is many things … a blogger, a Twitter star, a personality, a top-shelf reporter … but he’s also clearly self-assured enough to confess his own social media sins.
The aftermath of a Thunder loss
We all stayed up late to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder play the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of their first-round series on Monday night. We woke up Monday morning to a ‘Thunder-storm’ of Russell Westbrook debate. Did he shoot too much? Was he arguing too much? Does the Thunder have a big problem? Darnell Mayberry weighed in. Berry Tramel weighed in. Sports Editor Mike Sherman weighted in. Thunder star Kevin Durant and coach Scott Brooks weighed in. Berry finally asked the tough questioned to Westbrook on Tuesday at practice – the video is below (scroll way to the bottom). It was the story of the day on Wednesday — as it well should have been. What all the commotion and concern shows me is just how popular the Thunder is. It shows just how much this community is hanging on the swinging moods and every movement of the team. That’s the stuff of sports fanatics. Hyper-analysis and over-reaction of sports fans … it’s not just for college football anymore. At NewsOK, we’re more than happy to help you get all the info you need to feed your sports hunger. We’re right there with you.
The glory of a Thunder victory
Oh, and by the way, the Thunder went out and won Game 5 in Oklahoma City in the team’s most thrilling victory yet. If you thought fans were upset after Game 4, you can only guess how happy they were after Game 5. Again … this sports stuff in Oklahoma isn’t just for college football anymore.
The blood-alcohol level story of the week
This week’s “we-can’t-possibly-make-this-stuff-up” story came on Tuesday when a man was arrested behind the wheel of his car and an hour tested with a .35 blood-alcohol level. We can’t make it up, but we wish we did.
Arts Festival coverage
We made a point this week to drive our users to our Arts page under the A&E main navigation choice. It was, after all, late April — which means the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts. It’s a very colorful page this weekend, and I encourage you to see all we have to offer with our Arts coverage. This is the perfect weekend for that.
Norman Music Festival coverage
We are covering the Norman Music Festival this weekend with the same plan. We’re using our Music page under the A&E main navigation choice. You can find all the coverage from George Lang, all the videos from our video team and all the Twitter posts with the #nmf tag. It’s all right there on our Music Page this weekend.
Static again
Speaking of music, George Lang launched another episode of Static this week — this time it featured local artist Jabee. This episode was another set of performances from George’s and videographer Kyle Robert’s trip to the SXSW Festival in Austin. It’s good stuff. Watch it now … and turn the volume up.
A fan of the baby elephant
We received this piece of feedback this week about our Elephant Nation page and live camera. It was from a NewsOK reader in Illinois: “Got to see the baby for the first time for a few seconds. oh dear, I have tears but good tears. Can not thank you enough for sponsoring the cam. Elephants of the world can use all the fans possible. … High regards to your team and thank you.” Making an impact by sharing information. That’s what we like to do. I’m glad we helped this user.
A storm that wakes us up
A major storm took over national news this week. We woke up Thursday morning to news that was more significant than we really thought when we went to sleep Wednesday night. 300 people … that’s way too many. It was a sad story, one that we unfortunately know a little too well. We had lots of coverage on Thursday. We had continuous updates on the story, plus an interactive graphic on tornadoes in 2011, a series of videos from our NDN Video player that helps us cover national news, and a huge photo gallery with 176 photos of the devastation.
Most-viewed article
Remember the article I mentioned earlier about the two guys who jumped off the under-construction Devon Tower. Yep. That’s the one you read the most this week.
Most-viewed blog post
Remember the Thunder controversy I mentioned earlier about the number of shots Russell Westbrook took? Yep. Berry Tramel’s blog post about the issue led the way for all our bloggers.
Most-viewed photo gallery
Remember the photo gallery of the severe storms that killed more than 300 in the south? Nope. That didn’t lead the gallery charge. Instead, it was our photo gallery of the Royal Wedding. That gallery had more than 200 photos. And yes — I think her gown was stunning.
Most-viewed video
Remember how Berry Tramel and Darnell Mayberry covered the mistakes of Thunder guard Russell Westbrook in Game 4 against Denver. Well, the video of Berry’s questions to Westbrook and Durant topped our video views for this week. It’s good stuff.
Have a great weekend!
Marathon blogs, disemboweled cats, Billy Joel reviews and much more this week on NewsOK
Marathon coverage
The annual Oklahoma City Memorial marathon is going to be held in just a couple of weeks. That’s just enough time to see all the content on our Marathon page on NewsOK. The page is home to a really interesting interactive map and video of the race route. The page is also home to a blog by three journalists in our operation that are participating in the race. I’m always intrigued by the stories of people who are training to finish a race like this. You can follow their progress on the blog. There is plenty to take in on this page, so I invite you to check it out well in advance of the May 1 event.
Bombing page
And the reason for the Memorial Marathon — remembering the events of April 19, 1995 — should never be forgotten. That’s why I take this opportunity to again remind our users of this site we built in 2005. As I load the page, the opening video and music still makes me stop whatever I’m doing and watch. The site is full of history, photos and information about the victims. If you do nothing else on NewsOK this weekend, browse through this site.
Gas-saving myths
I was browsing through our Know It: Money page this week and came across an excellent story on the myths and urban legends about saving gasoline. The story came from AAA Oklahoma and does a good job of sharing the truth about what we often hear about saving money on gasoline. I learned some good things in this article, but the most interesting? … Myth No. 10: Putting the tailgate down on your pickup saves gas. False: You get better mileage with the tailgate up. Counterintuitive but true.
This week’s disemboweled cat story
From the “we-can’t-make-this-stuff-up” department comes this week’s story by Nolan Clay — Oklahoma City woman disemboweled cat, put liver in makeup box. It’s really impossible to read that headline without clicking through and reading the story. Go ahead. try it.
Elephant
Yes … that photo on the right — it’s an elephant. It’s from a screen catpure of the Elephant Cam on NewsOK this week. The live video is always embedded on our Elephant Nation page that was the inspiration of reporter Carrie Coppernoll. The video was also embedded in Carrie’s story on Tuesday about the baby elephant that’s about to arrive. Trust me when I tell you that we will cover the elephants at the Oklahoma City Zoo as they add another to their group.
Another conversation about comments
I had a pleasant conversation on Thursday with a NewsOK customer that uses our site frequently and likes to comment frequently. He was comparing our commenting functionality and philosophy to the comments on other news websites he has used in the past. He was in the process of changing his news home to NewsOK.com and still beginning to understand our commenting. Some thoughts he shared … (1) He loves being able to respond to someone’s comments, (2) He loves being able to sort comments by oldest or newest and (3) He likes being able to LIKE and FLAG comments. He does wish, however, that we would allow commenting on Letters to the Editor, but he understood our reasoning (essentially, that people who are forced to share their first and last name should be attacked in the comments by anonymous posters). He also asked that we expand our list of banned words. He gave some recommendations, and they were good recommendations (I won’t repeat them here), so I expanded the list of derogatory terms that aren’t allowed in our comments. In the end, it was another pleasant conversation with a NewsOK customer.
Get the Thunder in your inbox
Just in time for the NBA Playoffs, we launched a daily Oklahoma City Thunder e-mail newsletter on Thursday. The email is packed full of Thunder articles, videos, blogs and more. It goes out at noon every day, and you can sign up by selecting the option on your NewsOK Settings page and choosing to receive sports newsletters.
History on NewsOK
Joe Hight, one of the key leaders in The Oklahoman/NewsOK newsroom was at a conference last week where many of his conversations centered around our unique approach to a History Page on NewsOK. It’s a page that’s worth a visit on a slow afternoon. It isn’t full of breaking news or sports opinions, which drive a lot of our traffic. But it is full of outstanding content that can be read at any time. Check out Mary Phillips’ blog posts on “The Archivist” blog or flip through our list of historical photo galleries. If you want to learn something you didn’t know before about Oklahoma History, this is your place.
TSA official makes news
I was fortunate enough to attend the PLN (Peer Learning Network) Spring Partner luncheon on Thursday. PLN is run by the Zig Ziglar Center for Ethical Leadership at Southern Nazaren University, and OPUBCO is a member. As a result, I get to attend some of the events throughout the year. On Thursday, John Pistole was speaking. Pistole, who is the top official in the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), had much to talk about this week after the YouTube video of the pat-down on a 6-year-old girl went viral on the web. Pistole answered questions from the large audience, including some good ones from our own reporter, Jennifer Palmer. Palmer turned his reactions into a NewsOK.com exclusive Thursday afternoon, and it became one of the most popular stories on our site that day. Good question, good reporting and a quick turn-around for our readers. That’s what our reporters do on a daily basis.
Billy Joel … even better than Huey Lewis
I like Fridays. That’s when we publish our latest list of CD Reviews each week on NewsOK. This week’s list of reviews included a review of “Billy Joel: Live at Shae Stadium — The Concert.” I appreciate Brandy McDonnell’s review, because I know that she knows her music. “Two jam-packed CDs are needed to capture the 2½-hour concert, which mixes familiar hits, album cuts and high-wattage guest stars, including Oklahoma native Garth Brooks, Tony Bennett and Paul McCartney.” Two and half hours? That’s the Billy Joel I know. I just might have to buy a CD for the first time in a few years.
Most-viewed article
The runaway winner in our most-viewed article race this week came on Friday, when we picked up a lot of views on “Oklahoma rejects $54.6 million federal grant.” This article was a good story that was featured on our home page, but it was also linked to from the popular Drudge Report website. What was the most-popular article not linked from the Drudge Report this week? It was this gem from reporter Nolan Clay: “Oklahoma City woman disemboweled ca, put liver in makeup box. “(See my previous note about us not being able to make this stuff up!) If you want to know even more about the rejection of the federal grant, check out the article’s author, Michael McNutt in this excellent explanatory video:
Most-viewed blog post
It’s OU football again. This time, Jake Trotter’s post on Sunday about freshman wide receiver Justin McCay’s tweet about his injury led the blog traffic charge on NewsOK.
Most-viewed video
OU football spring game preview information led the way in our video views this week. It wasn’t close:
Love from Olivia Munn, a haircut for Dave Morris and a brave trip to Egypt for Katya Kruglak
See the news and notes about NewsOK.com on this very fine final week of March.
Olivia Munn still loves us
We received a fun package in the mail this week. It came from actress and icon Olivia Munn, who we have written about a few times in the past month or so in The Oklahoman, NewsOK.com and LOOKatOKC. I even wrote about how she posted a link to our story on her Twitter account so all her fans could see what George Lang wrote. But this week, we received this (click the image to enlarge):
Blake Griffin know it launches
We launched a new ‘know it’ page this week on one of Oklahoma’s finest — Blake Griffin. It was an easy call, really. Our most popular ‘know it’ pages have centered on Oklahoma’s most famous people – Sam Bradford and Kevin Durant. And Blake Griffin is about to be named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year. He has a chance to become the most dominant player in the NBA at the rate he’s going. He’s already the most exciting player in the league. All those superlatives? That’s all it takes to become a ‘know it‘ page on NewsOK.
Know everything about severe weather
Speaking of our know it pages, this is a great weekend to browse around on our Severe Weather know it page. The page was updated with fresh information last week as Bryan Painter organized another set of tips — things like what to do when you’re on the road, how to prepare and tornado myths. This page has tips, historical information and tons of links. No kidding — the Severe Weather know it can help you be ready for this storm season.
Dave Morris on video
Dave Morris appears on many of of our videos. He is the Director of Video, after all. And he’s a top-notch host that we’re lucky to have fronting our stories. And this week, he became a top-notch BALD host. If you wonder what happened to his full head of short hair, just watch this.
Angi Bruss on video
Angi Bruss also appears on many of our videos. She is one of our video hosts, after all. She’s also a great story-teller and fine journalist. Check out this story below. It made me stop and appreciate how we can capture emotions and stories with a camera, a voice and worthy story to tell.
The Rosalin Reynolds story
The stories we’ve had in the past week on the 8-year-old Watonga girl haunt me. We’ve had daily coverage of Rosalin Reynold’s death — how she was found in the field behind her home … how the man who was arrested was related to her … how the mother ‘just can’t let her go‘ … how the accused was at the home passed out drunk … how mother and father were arguing that night and staying in separate apartments … and how the victim might have been sexually assaulted. You can read all the stories by searching “Rosalin Reynolds” using the NewsOK search window. It’s a sad story — one we have to tell, even if we’d rather not.
A question about the NOOK?
I received a question from one of my blog readers this week (yes … I did say that … I have a reader). Essentially, the question was about our Digital Oklahoman replica edition. Would the new NOOK that’s being released in April be supported? The problem in the past is that the Digital Oklahoman is a Flash-based experience, and Flash has not been supported by the NOOK. The answer? … “I’m not certain if the Nook Color upgrade will include Flash and allow for the flash-based Digital Oklahoman replica experience to be viewed on that device. Quick research leads me to believe that it will be available, but Nook is a closed Android device, so it might be configured in a way that would make the Digital Oklahoman unusable. I just don’t know for sure right now. I can tell you one thing you already know … we have an e-reader experience for the Nook through the eNewspaper store. That would be my first recommendation. But I understand if you prefer the page-by-page replica experience. Another option we will soon have is an optimized native Android application for smart phones with that OS. It’s a good question, and I hope to learn more soon. Thanks for your question. And thanks for attempting to find ways to use our product in the way that best fits your needs.” The reader replied, promising to find any way he can to read The Oklahoman … “Thanks for your reply! We’ll hold out hope that the rumored addition of Flash to the Nook this Spring will enable access to the Digital Oklahoman we’ve grown so accustomed to. One way or the other, with whatever e-reader or tablet, we’ll find a good solution to keep our favorite daily paper available!”
New video players
You can find some new videos available on our website. It’s through our partnership with NDN Videos, which publishes AP videos as well as many other news sources. You can see these video players sprinkled throughout the site, like our health page, our parenting know it, our technology page, our home and garden page and more.
Lock your car
Have you ever sat and watched to see how driver after driver locks his or her vehicle after parking and running inside the post office. Don Gammill has. It’s a fun column. My favorite part … “He stepped out, shut the door and pointed the remote at the car. He pressed it. Nothing happened. He moved closer and tried again. Nope. He moved all around the car, trying to get it to lock. Finally, after he had tried every angle he could think of, he just opened the door and pushed the lock, then closed it.”
Email us a photo
A reader sent us a photo via our new photo-submission process using the email address pics@newsok.com. The photo appeared on the cover of The Oklahoman’s Metro/State section on Thursday. It just proves how much fame you can get by sharing your photo on NewsOK.com. And just to prove it, I shared a photo on April 1 to launch our April user-submitted gallery.
Katya’s trip to Egypt
I’ve written about Katya Kruglak before. Her ‘Dusty Globe‘ blog is always a great read, but I just ran across her blog posts from a couple weeks ago where she detailed her trip to Egypt. That’s right … that Egypt. I wish I knew about these posts earlier. She posted some great firsthand accounts of visiting the post-revolution and post-Mubarak country. She actually had 10 posts from her week in Egypt, but it all started with this great lead on March 11: “Landed in Cairo about an hour ago. Before you start to wonder if I’ve lost my mind, I did check out all the various travel warnings before booking the flight and it seems with a little common sense travel in Egypt should be fairly safe now. Or at least I hope.” She was safe. And we’re thankful for her posts.
Most-viewed article
It was incredibly close this week. But Berry Tramel’s article on Thursday about “UCO’s Terry Evans meeting with OU regarding basketball coaching vacancy” led the way this week. On Friday, we reported that “OU is expected to name Lon Kruger as the next coach.” The Friday report might very well surpass the Terry Evans report (Actually, I’m quite certain it will). But since I compiled this list at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, the Terry Evans story get s the award. Regardless, we know this: the OU coaching search leads the way for article traffic on NewsOK this week. UPDATE: by 4:15 p.m. on Friday, the Lon Kruger story is the most-viewed story of the week on NewsOK. UPDATE NO. 2: Our sports coverage team is simply awesome. We had the scoop on this story this week, and we’re really proud of that.
Most-viewed blog post
The OU coaching search takes the award this week. Mike Baldwin’s blog post on how the “OU coaching job is not an easy sell” for big-time coaches across the country led the way for our blogs this year. This makes the second consecutive week that posts about the OU basketball job topped this list. And we thought nobody cared about OU basketball anymore?
Most-viewed video
You guessed it … OU basketball coaching job analysis … for the second consecutive week.
