thestar.com user feedback

...and we're back

Blogging rule number one: don't start a blog if you can't keep up with it. So it is to our eternal embarrassment that the date of our previous post is May, 2006. Time is long past when we could blame that lapse on the summer vacation or a busy news day, so we won't even try.

However, we haven't been idle during our blogging layoff. Webmaking at thestar.com has continued apace, with some major additions in recent months and a lot of work in the background.

The most recent addition was the launch of Star P.M., a downloadable, printable afternoon PDF newspaper.

Star P.M. originated with the suggestion from two Star staffers that we bring back an afternoon edition of the Star to provide readers with an update on the news of the day as they head home from work. The dilemma was how to make and distribute such a thing in an age of high newsprint prices, soaring gas prices and urban gridlock. So we thought about moving electrons instead of atoms (to borrow an argument from MIT's Nicholas Negroponte) and put the printing in the hands (and at the discretion) of our readers. The result is a hybrid digital-print product, a compact PDF-based product that offers the display and layout of a newspaper and the flexibiliy of an electronic document, and designed to be printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper for portability.

Response to Star P.M. has been positive from readers, who say they enjoy the convenient packaging of the day's news, the useful information on events, traffic and weather and diversions such as a crossword, Sudoku and horoscopes, and from advertisers who like the banner ad display and the ability to reach readers in the afternoon.

Some others haven't been so kind in their assessments, wondering what we're up to - why the back-to-the-future approach? Star P.M. is an attempt to reach readers in a new way and one that we could bring to market quickly. And that's a good thing, considering that between our decision to proceed and the launch of the product, two papers in the U.K. (while another has ceased publishing) and one in Spain launched their own afternoon PDF editions -- with another coming after our launch. It is not as ambitious as the New York Times-Sony experiment in "e-newspapers" but an experiment in the future of digital newspapers.

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You may also have noticed a greater emphasis on video on thestar.com. In August we added breaking news video from Associated Press on the major international news of the day, with up to a dozen video clips a day.

More importantly, we've assembled a multimedia team with an incredible depth of journalistic experience, consisting of photojournalists Bernard Weil and Chris So and reporter Scott Simmie. Weil, who has been a photographer for the Star for more than 20 years, got his feet wet, literally, by filing video reports from the fallout of Hurricane Katrina last year, and has continued in his new role by producing videos on the tactics of red carpet papparazzi and last week's unveiling of an Avro Arrow replica. The team will also be expanding our use of video in the field and in our bureaus around the world, to bring readers closer to the experiences of our reporters.

Increased use of video will be just one improvement in our next site-wide redesign, something we've been working on very hard for several months - the result of this work will be more dramatic use of photos, better coverage of breaking news, and a deeper, more useful site for news, information and entertainment.

Tagging, saving and sharing thestar.com

thestar.com has added new online features from social bookmarking site Del.icio.us and its parent company, Yahoo!, to make it easy for users of those sites to tag and save thestar.com articles and add thestar.com RSS feeds to their customed My Yahoo! pages.

Readers will now see boxes on all articles inviting readers to "tag and save" the article to their del.icio.us accounts. When a reader clicks the link, a del.icio.us popup window prompts the reader to add keywords and a note about the page, and then adds the web address to the user's list of bookmarks in the del.icio.us database. Through the site's "social bookmarking" technology, the user can share his or her bookmarks with friends and other del.icio.us users can discover the article based on shared keyword tags.

Thestar.com has also extended its RSS feeds to include My Yahoo buttons, making it easy for My Yahoo users to add thestar.com headlines to their home pages. Thestar.com offers more than 30 RSS feeds its news, sports and entertainment headlines, blogs and podcasts, and all of these feeds can now be easily added to Yahoo's personalized home page service. (See our full range of RSS and My Yahoo feeds.)

The use of RSS (popularly parsed as "real simple syndication") feeds to distribute information on the Internet has broadened the ways that people are getting their news, and content providers, such as news sites, must make it easy for readers to take advantage of these channels or risk losing audience.

The major portal and search sites, such as Yahoo, MSN and Google, allow users to create personalized front pages that pull in headlines, classified listings, weather information and more using RSS; mobile devices, updated desktop news tickers and personalized newsletters do the same. As this kind of user-defined aggregation grows, more and more readers may come to content sites by clicking on a headline distributed by RSS rather than through the web site's home page.

Similarly, online bookmarking, community tagging and other concepts that allow people to share links and information around shared interests, or what are often called "communities of interest," offer another choice for readers over the traditional web site front page. With the explosion of these technologies and applications, there are more and more options -- some would say a dizzying array of options -- for Web surfers to choose from, and likely a shakeout and rationalization to come. The level of interest is these applications is highlighted by the current issue of Business 2.0, which offers a list "the next 25" Internet businesses to watch, many of which are related to social networks and tag-based technologies.

In the meantime, making these tools available to readers is part of the process that determines which ones are ultimately the most useful to readers, and to us.

And we can also say this with some certainty: there's lots more to come.

What's new

With the Federal election behind us and the Winter Olympics fast approaching, we thought we'd catch our breath and note for the record some of the new features of thestar.com that might have slipped under the radar. Here is a partial list:

• Turin 2006 -- The Star will have a dozen reporters and photographers in Turin, Italy for the Winter Olympic Games, where all eyes will be on Canada to improve on its 2002 medal total before Vancouver hosts the 2010 Games. We'll have full coverage starting at 5 a.m. every day, with photo galleries updated throughout the day. You can be among the first to know when Canadians win medals, with our free desktop news alerts, follow Team Canada's hockey fortunes with Chris Young's live text commentaries, and listen to weekly audio reports from the Star's Jim Byers through our Turin podcasts.
• atHome -- Every week, the Star offers home owners, condo hunters and house buyers useful articles on buying and selling, renovating and decorating a home -- and now we've brought all those stories and columns together on one page: atHome (www.thestar.com/athome). You'll find archived stories on decorating, gardening and renovating, plus features from our main weekly homes sections: New in Homes, Condo Living, Your Home and the new Personal Space.
• The Academy Awards -- The annual awards season reaches its peak on March 5, and you can follow the lead up to the red carpet on thestar.com's special page -- or vote to tell us who you think should win, in our month-long poll. Have your own picks? Read Peter Howell's blog and give us your take on the Oscar race.
• Starweek -- Our readers asked for it. And asked for it. And we eventually listened. You can now read selected stories from Starweek, the Saturday Star's TV magazine, online -- along with our searchable TV listings.
• Because I Said So -- a blog on parenting. Andrea Gordon, the Star's family issues reporter, found more and more that the Internet has become the central resource for parents, and particularly mothers, to research and share information. So she has brought her thoughtful and unique approach to parenting issues to a blog that is far more open-minded than the familiar parental refrain that gives it its name.
• Tyler Hamilton's Clean Break podcast -- Technology reporter Tyler Hamilton offers an audio version of his biweekly column - just the latest of our six regular podcasts.

This is just the beginning of a very busy 2006 for thestar.com - so stay tuned and please continue to send in your feedback through the comments in this blog or to the webmaster.