The Journalism IconoclastThe blog of online journalist and Web developer Patrick Thornton. This blog seeks to combine journalism and Web development to forge a new frontier.Jay Mariotti made the right decision to leave the Sun-Times- August 28, 2008 The real question is why he stuck around so long. If fact, I don&8217;t understand why any star print columnist or beat reporter doesn&8217;t just start his or her own Web site. The Dallas Cowboys Blog for The Dallas Morning news can get hundreds of thousands of page views in one day. And that&8217;s without a ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/28/jay-mariotti-made-the-right-decision-to-leave-... The great journalism education debate- August 27, 2008 What is the future of journalism education Many people have taken issue with journalism education, especially in the U.S. One major concern is that journalism education appears to be behind the industry and rarely out in front, innovating. Many people even advise against majoring in journalism. But let&8217;s step back from the criticisms of journalism education and ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/27/the-great-journalism-education-debate/ News organizations need to upsell users- August 22, 2008 The idea that news organizations should charge for basic content on the Web is repugnant. It&8217;s a losing proposition. It&8217;s a terrible, terrible idea. And journalism is filled with terrible ideas right now. But that doesn&8217;t mean news organizations can&8217;t charge for content. Far from it. Rather, news organizations need to create upsell features. For years, I have ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/22/news-organizations-need-to-upsell-users/ Using Web analytics to improve content- August 19, 2008 For years individual content producers in news organizations didn&8217;t have an easy way to figure out how popular or useful their content was with people. But with today&8217;s advanced site analytics, content producers have unprecedented data about users and their surfing habits. I wrote a long post about this subject over at BeatBlogging.Org. Consider this post ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/19/using-web-analytics-to-improve-content/ A hyperlocalbeat blogging experiment- August 18, 2008 Sometimes the best way to learn about a subject is just to go out and experiment. With that thought in mind, I&8217;ve launched a hyperlocalbeat blogging experiment, Chagrin Valley Sports. My goal is simple: provide better and more in-depth coverage of local sports in the Chagrin Valley area utilizing a beat blog. I&8217;m starting out with ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/18/a-hyperlocal-experiment/ What is the future of the copy editor- August 18, 2008 Do copy editors have a future in journalism Will that role be drastically changing Traditionally, copy editors at most newspapers had to do more than just edit copy. They also had to do page layout, fit stories to fixed spaces, write headlines, write captions, etc. Obviously, page layout is not needed on the Web, and every ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/18/what-is-the-future-of-the-copy-editor/ Microsoft, worst customer support ever- August 13, 2008 Maybe it shouldn&8217;t even be called customer support at Microsoft. More like spend 2 hours of your life getting no help. No help whatsoever. I recently purchased an XBOX 360 Elite (you know, the expensive model), and I went to redeem an XBOX Live subscription card I had lying around. I got an error when doing so. Oh ...http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2008/08/13/microsoft-worst-customer-support-ever/ |