Next!

My grade for The City Maven was posted earlier this week, which means the school part of this endeavor is officially over. In the unlikely event that anyone checked TheCityMaven.com today, this is what greeted visitors in place of the site that was up last week:

I thought it would be a little more interesting than the typical maintenance page with that annoying ticker counting down the days until the site relaunches. Yes, I said relaunches.

I have given a handful of City Maven presentations over the past three weeks, and one of the harsher comments I received was this:

“All you have to offer is you used to work there, you’re nice and you bake chocolate chip cookies.”

Good point, buddy!

Excuse me, what I meant to say is that I couldn’t agree with you more.

It has been pointed out to me several times that no one has yet found a way to turn online news or hyperlocal news into a successful business venture. True enough. I’ve also been asking for confidence in the project based upon assumptions, projections and my sparkling personality, none of which you can take to the bank.

Before I ask anyone else to take a chance on The City Maven, I need to do one very important thing: I need to take a chance on The City Maven.

So that’s what I’m doing. Over the next month, I’m going to retool the site, reestablish relationships with my old contacts and sources, build up a library of searchable public documents, and figure out what I can do as a one-man-band.

Then, I’m going to pack up Lola and move back to Los Angeles. I'm gonna go it alone and run this publication.

In the meantime, I am happily taking suggestions on:

• Story ideas
• Web design
• New contacts
• A bungalow located near a mountain or an ocean

The possibility of failure is hardly enough to stop me from pursuing something that is terrifying and awesome all at once.

Labor of Love

Aug. 25, 2010

A year’s worth of work culminates today with the presentation of my independent study project, The City Maven. It's been an interesting year, to say the least. Let’s rewind the tape and see where I was on:

Aug. 25, 2009

Hot. Sweaty, with a thin film of dirt covering my entire body. I'm sitting in a cramped room in the Delhi hostel. There’s a pile of empty plastic water bottles in the corner. This song, then this one, blast through my ear buds until we decide to venture out for dinner. Outside the dirt road is filled with people, children, carts, garbage, excrement and animals. It’s my last day in a country that for two months has pushed me to my physical, emotional and mental limits.

How many nights did I spend on a speeding train, staring out into the darkness of the countryside?

How many times were the sights of begging, suffering and death just too much?

And then, how many times did I think, this may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen?

The next morning I got on a plane to London, where I met a friend and reacclimated to hot water, clean bedding and meat. It was my transitional week, from one adventure to the next. My last night there, after L had flown back to San Francisco, I turned on the radio and wrote this:

...

game face on. competitive streak polished. with a curl in my hair and a shine on my lips.

...

swapped mountains for skyscrapers. winetasting and cocktail dresses for coffee and sweats in the library.

india. difficult, smelly, dirty, poverty-stricken, loud, congested. and yet, ... something. there's something that's brought me peace. calm in my heart. my fortunes and blessings have never been clearer to me. what is there to complain about? strive for success, love, confidence. bring those to my family and friends.

a return and a beginning.

The first chapter of that beginning has closed. Here’s the next chapter:

To Angelenos who have a financial, business or personal interest in the governmental decisions of Los Angeles’ mayor, city council members and city departments, The City Maven is a news website that produces fair, insightful coverage while providing access to an aggregation of public documents and fostering an online community that encourages readers to voice their opinions and engage with their city.

Other highlights from today's presentation:

Market Analysis—Survey: Preliminary market analysis indicates there is a promising community interest in a news publication like The City Maven.

In July 2010, I contacted 116 Angelenos I identified as potential customers and asked if they would be willing to participate in an online survey regarding their media habits as they related to political and governmental journalism in Los Angeles. The group was made up of City Hall press deputies, political consultants, union and business representatives, and neighborhood council members. Of the 116 people contacted, 47 agreed to participate in the survey; ultimately 34 people started and completed the survey via Survey Monkey. The survey had 10 questions. Some participants received an additional two questions depending on how they answered Question 10.

Market Analysis—Interviews: A series of interviews with heavyweights in Los Angeles’ political and journalism scenes confirmed my findings that there is an audience, and a need, for a publication like The City Maven.

My takeaways from these interviews were:

• Overwhelming support for the aggregation of public documents
• Strong support for live-streaming and live-blogging events such as town hall meetings
• Politicians are always looking for a way to get their message out and would be interested in a weekly, half-hour video chat
• Angelenos are unable to identify with their council members and would benefit from knowing about their backgrounds, personalities and power within council
• The City Maven could empower Angelenos by making public documents available and providing them with an online community in which to discuss policy decisions
• Before launching the site, I need to decide The City Maven’s personality and tone
• There was general agreement from theses interviews that the site needs to have some sort of edge to capture readers’ attention
• Civic-minded Angelenos are a vastly underserved audience
• Material could be sold to the Los Angeles Times and Daily News through a financial partnership similar to the Chicago News Cooperative’s relationship with The New York Times
• Editorial and business decisions must be made in silos

Competitive Analysis: Survey participants identified these publications as their most-visited outlets:

• Los Angeles Times
• The Daily News
• Los Angeles Business Journal
• City News Service
• Los Angeles Weekly
• KPCC 89.3 FM
• KNX 1070 Newsradio
• LAist

Audience Projection: The City Maven’s goal and expectation is to have 100,000 unique visitors per month in two years.

Financials—Expenses: It will cost $47,050 to start the company. It will cost $187,248 to operate for the first 12 months.

Financials—Revenue: There are three revenue streams The City Maven intends to pursue:

1. Advertising
2. Membership
3. Content-sharing

Watch Your Tone, Missy

A frequent comment I heard during my trip to Los Angeles was that my site needs to have an edge. What is it's tone? Here goes:

The maven is a stylish nerd. She loves curling up with RFPs and highlighting all the jargon and numbers. She’s tickled pink when she gets business cards from mid-level City Hall staffers. For her, the best feeling in the world is to post an article and have readers say, “I didn’t know this. That’s outrageous!”

The maven is also a perfectionist. She gets up at 5 a.m. every morning to hike through the Santa Monica Mountains. Her skirts are perfectly pressed and her hair always has just the right amount of volume. She is one of those women who are always prepared with extra batteries, duct tape, foot petals and Band-Aids.

Everyone smiles when they see the maven, and why shouldn’t they – she’s witty and charming. She makes time to stop by parties for a drink, even when she’s been up all night baking chocolate chip cookies for her fellow reporters.

The maven has great joy for her life.

All that being said, what does it mean for her reporting and writing?

Waste, inefficiencies and lies are personally offensive to the maven. Any hint of a politician behaving in a way that puts himself before his constituents drives her crazy. She believes it’s her responsibility to hold elected officials accountable and empower Angelenos to get personally involved with their city. The maven loves Los Angeles and wants it to be the best city it can be.

The maven believes in tough love.

True Love

The coffee, not the mug.

Tweet Tweet

Tweet, tweet. What’s that, a cute baby chick?

Nope, it’s just the network of friends, coworkers, reporters, gadflys and major corporations pounding down the virtual wall of my computer. Every minute of every hour of every day.

I was a Twitter holdout for a long time. I didn’t see its value and it seemed like one more thing to steal away my time and attention. I finally caved in March when a professor told us we could pick up extra credit by tweeting articles related to our course materials. Extra credit – it’s my kryptonite. I went home that day and joined Twitter as fast as I could. Thank goodness I did because without those two extra points, I’m sure my A would have … still been an A (OK, not the point ).

I am five months into my Twitter experience and I have to say I dislike it even more now than I did before. Seriously – the site is user-unfriendly, unorganized and I’m constantly stuck looking at that stupid whale.

All that said, I still created an account – twitter.com/TheCityMaven – for the project when I started putting together the website and a web presence. I see Twitter as a tip sheet. It’s a way to grab headlines and news updates. Plus, it’s important to keep an eye on the tweets of politicians, department heads and press deputies. If you don’t, there’s the danger of missing gems like this:

Last quarter I took a class called Building Networked Audiences, and one of the areas of study was social media. It wasn't content that we focused on but rather the physical and electronic structures of networks. One site that does this is Klout. It measures Twitter influence based on:

1. True Reach
2. Amplification Probability
3. Network Influence

True Reach is the size of the “engaged audience,” meaning the number of followers minus spammers and inactive accounts. Amplification Probability considers the diversity of the audience, the likelihood that a person’s tweet will be retweeted, and the effectiveness in generating new followers, retweets and @ replies. Network Influence, finally, is the influence level of the engaged audience.

Klout provides an even more detailed explanation on its website but you get the idea.

I looked up Klout scores for a couple of LA media outlets. On a scale of 1 to 100, LAist has a 65. NBC4 has a 31. LATimes has a 78. LAObserved has a 46.

These numbers leave me with some questions: what is the true “influence” that these sites have? I understand within the context of Twitter, but what about within the context of something that actually matters? Do the people behind these accounts actually have clout when they need to get ahold of an elected official? Do they have the ability to set news agendas?

Twitter has critical mass on its side, for now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it shows itself to be an important tool for marketers. Maybe it will continue to be a tip sheet for reporters (and a place where anonymous strangers hilariously impersonate famous dudes) but I don’t see the staying power. The problem with 140 characters is the same problem with the useless ticker streaming on cable news stations – it trains us to believe we’ve been told the most important piece of information and anything else would be ancillary. Can't we all agree by this point that if a public person's statement includes 2, U, @, ;) , reload, or patently false and misleading facts, then there's more to the story?

Born to Run

The work of Project Goldfish has coincided with my training for the Chicago Half-Marathon. I am not a businesswoman, nor am I a runner so … what better time to take on two huge challenges than at the exact same time. My father has, in the past, referred to me as the Energizer Bunny. I should really look into having one of my batteries removed.

Anywho …

This summer has been about building strength and endurance, challenging myself physically and mentally, and falling short or failing before I – ultimately – succeed. Running has been my greatest stress release when I can’t take one more minute of financial projections and Wordpress widgets.

Things are moving right along with Project Goldfish and, in addition to my family, friends, peanut butter and the Real Housewives of New Jersey, a major source of inspiration and motivation has been the book Born to Run. Written by journalist Christopher McDougall, it is the true story of an incredible tribe of super athletes living in the canyons of Mexico. These men, women and children run incredible distances with apparent ease. Running defines their way of life. Running frees them.

I read this book with a pencil in my hand to underline, star and mark quotes and entire passages. What I love about these quotes is that they are not simply about running – they’re a way of looking at life. (Disclaimer: I’m starting to sound sort of hippy-dippy. This is very unlike me. However, this book hit me in a way that most materials do not.)

“… I should have been there when this ninety-five-year-old man came hiking twenty-five miles over the mountain. Know why he could do it? Because no one ever told him he couldn't. No one ever told him he oughta be off dying somewhere in an old age home. You live up to your own expectations, man.”

When I made the decision to enroll at Medill, I told people I was sick and tired of reporters wringing their hands and worrying “What will become of journalism?” I decided I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines. Someone needs to find a new economic model for journalism, so why shouldn’t it be me? I am smart and enthusiastic and capable – I am just as likely as anyone else to make a major contribution to journalism. I’m not saying Project Goldfish is the answer but I think it’s something.

“Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.”

At first, this sentence seems pretty dark, doesn’t it? I imagine a disillusioned 15-year-old, sitting in her bedroom, picking at her black nail polish and crying that the world Just. Doesn’t. Get it. So dark, so dramatic. OK, but the more I thought about this line, the more I liked it because pain can be frustration, anger, stress, anxiety or fear. Sometimes these are necessary because …

“Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, may we find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstructions.”

There is a light at the end of that pain. I completely agree that to grow, we have to push through all the “fatigue and distress.” Did I ever, in my wildest dreams, think I would run 10 miles? No, but I can, and I can do it because I pushed through miles 7, 8 and 9.

“You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else. And like everything else we love – everything we sentimentally call our ‘passions’ and ‘desires’ – it’s really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We’re all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.”

There is nothing else I want to be doing right now. I love this project. I believe in it. I’ve barely left my apartment in three days because of it (I left yesterday to stock up on more peanut butter and Pirate Booty. I have the diet of a 5-year-old). We’re meant to push ourselves. Finishing this project, so I can get my master’s degree, so I can get back to my career, so I can make journalism better for the audience – as oppose to advertisers and moguls – is as necessary to me as food, rent and Facebook.

The mental challenge of running is a wonderful way to think about the challenges of school, work and life. When all else fails, I take a deep breath, relax and repeat the words of my Coach Richard:

If you’re not fainting or puking, KEEP GOING.

So Close

Think Tank of Awesomeness

And I’m back!

It was a very busy but incredibly productive four days in Los Angeles. The good news is that it sounds like I’m on the right track with Project Goldfish. People agree there is a need for the type of reporting I want to do. It was encouraging to see other people get excited about an idea that I have spent so much time putting together.

The three aspects of Project Goldfish are:

1. Original reporting on city government and its policy decisions
2. An online community to foster discussions on those policies
3. An aggregation of public documents that give readers access to ordinances, motions, letters, reports

With that structure in mind, here are some of the highlights from my interviews last week:

Overwhelming support for the aggregation of public documents:

There are two major benefits to providing a one-stop shop of documents – it can empower readers to get involved and feel connected to their city government and it can be a useful tool to businesses and groups that need to stay up-to-date on legislation.

Strong support for live-streaming and live-blogging events such as town hall meetings:

It’s difficult for reporters to write stories on town hall meetings. The meetings are typically in the evening and run past newspaper and television deadlines. Plus, you usually have to sit there for two or three hours to get anything that is useable. But, that doesn’t mean town hall meetings aren’t important – they are. With Project Goldfish, I propose live streaming these meetings onto the web site while a reporter live blogs the public comments. At the end of the evening, the video could be edited down to a two minute highlight reel. This has the added benefit of giving readers the opportunity to watch and listen to meetings that take place halfway across town.

Politicians are always looking for a way to get out their message and would be interested in a weekly, half-hour video chat:

I’ve mentioned this on here before but I would love to spend a half an hour a week with a newsmaker via a video chat. Readers could send in questions (maybe even Skype in questions) to find out what is going on in that council district, neighborhood council or city department. It is a way of making City Hall real and accessible.

Angelenos are unable to identify with their council members and would benefit from knowing about their backgrounds, personalities and power within council

Before launching the site, I need to decide Project Goldfish’s personality and tone:

There was general agreement from theses interviews that the site needs to have some sort of an edge to capture readers’ attention. One of my interviewees gave me the same advice he received from Warren Christopher – CRUSADE. He said I should find angry, young reporters and unleash them. Hmm, I think that is a little too extreme for my taste (I’m all for anger but it has to be directed and it has to be productive). Though the reporting will be fair and accurate, I do agree that Project Goldfish needs to start from a point of view. How do I see City Hall?

Civic-minded Angelenos are a vastly underserved audience

Material could be sold to the Los Angeles Times and Daily News through a financial partnership similar to the Chicago News Cooperative’s relationship with The New York Times

Editorial and business decisions must be made in silos

With these thoughts in mind, I'm updating my business plan and imaging how I'll incorporate everything into the website. I’m hard at work. Really, see:

Coffee! Papers! Pens! Work! Work! Work!

Los Angeles Weecap by the Numbers

4 days

11 meetings

240 miles

5 Starbucks, 2 Coffee Beans and an IHOP

1 parking ticket

1,000 ideas

10 days to go

Sometimes It All Feels Like This

Members Only

This past week I found myself in a flood of articles on membership, subscriptions, paywalls and the monetization of online journalism.

An opinion piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal makes the argument that consumers are willing to pay for news. Peter Funt argues that we’ve already seen consumers are willing to pay for television if it includes “convenience, commercial-free viewing, high video quality, plus various ‘bonus’ features that (create) perceived value.” The same is true with radio when it has “high-quality audio, largely free of ads, with a vast array of channels to please many tastes.”

Funt is correct in pointing out that in paying for television and radio programming that has traditionally been free, consumers expect added benefits in terms of quality and exclusivity. DVDs, HBO, satellite radio all improve the experience of watching TV and listening to music or talk radio. What can news outlets do to improve the experience of reading or watching the news?

Sites like The Texas Tribune and MinnPost are looking to answer that question and pick up revenue in the process via membership. Ken Doctor explains the state of membership in a recent piece for the Nieman Journalism Lab. According to the article, The Texas Tribune has 1,700 members, with a goal of reaching 10,000 members. Members, on average, pay $100. Over at MinnPost, there are 2,000 members. In 2009, membership brought in $360,000 for the site.

Doctor then gets into some interesting math. MinnPost found people who visited the site at least twice a month were the most likely to sign up as members. Of those 40,000 visitors, executives hope to turn 5 percent – 2,000 people – into members.

GlobalPost is another news site that is pursuing membership as a revenue source. Phil Balboni, who runs the site, hopes to get 1 percent of his 900,000 unique monthly visitors to become members. With each member paying $30, that would generate $270,000.

After reading these articles, I started playing around with some numbers for Project Goldfish. I am proposing that the revenue streams for the site be:

• Advertising
• Membership
• Subscription

My current proposal and business plan call for all articles to be free and available to everyone. Membership would provide access to the online community, The Watercooler, where readers could pose questions, converse and debate with other audience members. I would hope and expect that with paying customers posting under their real names, the conversation would elevate above derogatory and off-topic comments.

To figure out how many members I can expect, I first had to estimate the overall traffic to the site. Using Compete, I researched traffic metrics for 27 news sites in Los Angeles. Specifically, I looked at unique visitors. My goal with Project Goldfish is to have 100,000 unique visitors two years out from the launch date. That would put my traffic somewhere between The Jewish Journal and LAObserved.

With 100,000 unique visitors in mind, I used a 1 percent conversion rate and 5 percent conversion rate and assumed members would pay an annual fee of $30:

Membership, I think, would appeal to individuals.

A subscription would appeal to firms and corporations. A subscription would provide access to pay:

• PDF copies of ordinances, government reports and non-confidential correspondents
• Budgetary documents and amendments
• City contracts
• Complete listing of City Hall council and committee meetings
• Complete listing of Neighborhood Council meetings and events
• Weekly video chats with newsmakers
• Access to early morning and late-night news roundups via email

It is basically an aggregation of documents, both paper and electronic. Think of it as a one-stop reference tool. The subscription would cost $100 a year.

Something Is Not Right With Me

I've had it.

I’m angry.

I am thoroughly pissed off.

Q: What could possibly have me so riled up? A: The subjects of David Carr’s article from Sunday, “Journalists, Provocateurs, Maybe Both” and Brian Stelter’s “When Race is the Issue, Misleading Coverage Sets Off an Uproar.”

I try as best as I can to avoid cable news, partisan media and bloggers who push an agenda. It’s not my cup of tea and, generally, I’m not missing out on any actual news by refusing to engage with these outlets. However, the agendas, inaccuracies, hate and stupidity peddled by these people and organizations have crept so far into my daily news digest that they can no longer be ignored, and that is infuriating.

Jon Stewart did a nice takedown last night on the knee-jerk reactions of politicians and reporters in regards to the Shirley Sherrod story. He summarized Robert Gibbs’ statement as: “This administration is so sorry that you people suck so bad.”

Here is what makes me angry: The job of reporters is to provide facts. It is NOT the job of reporters to publicize whatever videos or opinions come their way. To air an edited video is wrong. To air an edited video from a person who openly pushes an agenda is inexcusable.

In Carr’s piece, he writes in regards to “tradition-bound journalists,” “Why, after all, would someone spend their professional life enmeshed in the civic conversation unless they had a stake in it somewhere? But what is emerging is more of a permanent crusade, where information is not only power, but a means to a specific end.”

Everyone has a stake in the civic conversation. Civic issues include everything from educating children to taxation to caring for the ill to trimming the trees. Civic issues keep this great country going, and a reporter who covers politics or government is chronicling events because it is his job.

As for the people who have the time and attention to edit videos and destroy lives, careers and organizations as a “means to a specific end,” here is a list of 10 things they could do that would actually help their country and community, which they claim to have such concern and regard for:

1. Donate blood
2. Tutor a child
3. Serve the homeless at a soup kitchen
4. Pick up trash on the sidewalk, beach or along the highway
5. Donate school supplies and Christmas gifts to a children’s charity
6. Coach Little League (or lead the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts)
7. Join a civic group
8. Go outside and run 5 miles
9. Plant a garden
10. Read a book

Any one of those things would help a heck of a lot more than getting the Georgia State Director of Rural Development fired. How on earth does that help the American people?

Journalists have a duty to move the conversation away from this crap. I said it – this is all a bunch of crap that keeps us from discussing anything of substance. OK, an example of how we can move away from the swamp of crap that fills cable news and the Internet:

Before she was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor would often say in her speeches:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.”

This makes her a racist, right? She must hate white people. That quickly became the narrative of the story until she clarified her remarks and promised to take the phrase out of her speeches. (I know the greater issue was whether a judge’s personal experiences do or should influence her interpretation of the law.)

An incredible opportunity was missed here by reporters, who could have used the occasion to actually look at the experiences young Latinas have in this country. I had recently ended a 16 month-tutoring relationship with a young Latina when Sotomayor was nominated. My student’s home life was unstable, chaotic and violent. Her family had no expectations for her. Her first day of school was interrupted by a gun scare. Her living room was a revolving door of drug dealers and gang members. Yet, she would beg her mother to drive her to the downtown library (the one without the fistfights and yelling). She spent hours sketching. Her face lit up the first time I brought her brochures on art school and community college.

You cannot tell me that those experiences won’t give her a completely different world view than you or me. Let’s talk about that, as journalists. Let’s tell those stories.

In the future, when reporters find themselves getting all hot and bothered over a crap-filled issue that will unnecessarily rile up viewers, may I suggest they take a cue from survival guides: Sit down. Have a smoke. Take a deep breath.

Oh California Oh

This weekend I watched the Joan Rivers documentary, “A Piece of Work.” In the film, Rivers’ agent talks about one of the first times he met with Richard Pryor. The agent sat down with the comedian and laid out a master plan for his career, explaining projects that were six and 12 months down the road. Pryor looked at the agent and said, “That’s all great but what the f--- are we gonna do Monday?”

That’s how I feel. It’s great to have big visions and ideas, to think about how I’ll achieve something and plan it all to death. But, you still have to get up in the morning and make it happen.

With that in mind, I have a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles on deck for Aug. 10^th to the 13^th. I had been thinking for some time that it would be useful to go out to L.A. as part of my independent study then, all of the sudden, I looked at the calendar and realized that the quarter is quickly coming to an end. So, off to Los Angeles I go.

The purpose of the trip is to talk to journalists, professors and political types about political and governmental reporting in the city. What gaps do they see in coverage? What types of stories are poorly or inconsistently reported? My adviser pointed out to me that if I’m going after an audience that already reads the Los Angeles Times, then I have to find the stories The Times doesn’t have. I have 10 interviews lined up so far, with another three in the works. I’m sure it will be exhausting.

The trip is added motivation to get this project done. The various elements I have written up for the business plan – a positioning statement, a market and competitive analysis, the financials – are being compiled into one final document. My sketches for the website are getting photoshopped and coded. The Twitter and Facebook pages will, I expect, be public in another week or two.

In between my interviews, I want to photograph iconic images of Los Angeles that can be used on the Project Goldfish website. “Iconic” images being a little bit of what tourists would expect to see – the Hollywood sign, City Hall, the LAX sign – and a lot of what Angelenos would expect to see. I want to capture what makes Los Angeles home to more than 3 million people. [Update: As I was writing this, Kevin Roderick posted a link to news photographer Bryan Frank’s photographs of the city: http://coolshots.blogspot.com/.]

I also added The City at Stake to my reading list. Raphael Sonenshein’s book on Los Angeles’ charter reform is one that should probably be in my library of L.A. books regardless, but I expect it will be particularly helpful as I navigate the political-governmental divide of stories.

Spending a few days in California will make this project feel “real,” as will finding investors. Last week I contacted the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, which pointed me toward the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. The group’s very helpful website includes a section on financing and within that, there is an even better list of Southern California venture capitalist firms. I spent time Friday researching every firm on the list. I found four that specialize in financing media and online start-ups.

I briefly thought about just knocking on the firms’ doors and asking for a suitcase full of cash. I have a winning personality and that’s all it takes, right? Hmm … well, maybe it takes an actual proposal. With that in mind, I’ve reached out to venture capitalists I know here in Chicago to ask them how I approach investors and what they will expect to see from me in a start-up proposal.

The greatest challenge in the next two weeks is finding an answer to the question everyone asks me: How are you going to make money? Sigh. I’m meeting with another professor on Wednesday for help on estimating impressions and contracting with an ad network. Another small step toward the greater vision.

Notable Quotable

"I just don't believe the economics of a paywall are going to work, unless your content is unique, highly differentiated, difficult to duplicate. As good as I believe our content is, if there are reasonable substitutes available for free it's tough to get people to pay."

-- Randy Michaels, CEO of Tribune Co. (WSJ, 7/26/10)

Design Star

In Googled, Ken Auletta goes into great detail about Google’s hiring process. After describing the lengthy and tedious interview process, Auletta writes that the new hires became “employee number 26” or “employee number 84.” I want my employee number 2 to be the tech guy.

I find the task of creating the Project Goldfish website to be very daunting. It isn’t so much the how of making the site, because I seem to have that down, but it’s the how do I make this good? “Good” meaning both in aesthetics and function. I do not want the site to look like a traditional newspaper website, nor do I want it to look like a blog. Aesthetically, I think the site should be fresh, clean, modern and authoritative. I was going to add “youthful” to that listing, in place of modern, but it seems in conflict with having an authoritative voice.

The functionality of the site is something I struggle with because I keep asking myself this question: What is the best way to tell a story? For the time being, Project Goldfish will be dominated by words, not pictures or videos. So, what can I do with those words? First, I think reports, letters and ordinances that are referenced in stories should also be linked to those stories. The Los Angeles Times does this to an extent but I think it should be the Project Goldfish standard. Why not give the audience the same materials we have as reporters? If my reporters and I do our jobs, our stories will give readers context, history and perspective that go beyond the words in a committee report. This would also allow Project Goldfish to become a resource for readers who want to pull files in a pinch.

I also want to revolutionize how readers comment on stories and interact with reporters. I have written before about my disdain for comments that appear at the bottom of news stories. With that in mind, how can I utilize web design to create an intelligent, engaged community of readers? One thing I want employee number 2 to do is program software that would apply something like Microsoft Word’s tracked changes to a story. For example, let’s say you are reading this story about the Department of Water and Power. As you’re reading, you may have questions. With the system I want to design, you could highlight a portion of the article and write in your question, instead of leaving an angry or confused comment at the bottom of the story.

The comment would be sent to the reporter as an email. At a given time every day, the top 10 questions on a story would appear in a sidebar next to the story, along with answers from the reporter. This would provide greater depth to the story and show readers that their questions or concerns are heard and respected by the reporter.

I also plan for Project Goldfish to have a community page that is entirely separate from the news pages. Over at “The Watercooler,” I envision having video sessions with reporters talking about their latest stories. I would also like to have video interviews with newsmakers. I could see every Thursday evening being a web version of Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live!” Council members, union reps or members of neighborhood councils could come on to talk about the stories of the week, what they’re working on, and give their perspectives on what is happening at City Hall. Also, as you can see from the mockup below, there is a section called “Letter to the Editor.” Every day, my staff and I would pick one letter that is thoughtful and intelligent enough to be highlighted. And yes, the writer is identified through Facebook Connect. A newspaper wouldn’t publish a letter without verifying the writer’s identity; why would I?

I have plenty of ideas on what to create. Building those ideas, now that’s why I need employee number 2.

Money, Money, Money

I am at the point in my independent study where I am calculating what it would cost to start up and run Project Goldfish. I want to see if this is something that is feasible, economically. I have spent about two, three weeks now putting together a budget for the site, estimating rent, insurance and newspaper subscriptions. The cost to start Project Goldfish is roughly the same as a new Honda Accord. If I cut down on attorney’s fees, we’re basically looking at a Ford Focus.

As far as the cost to operate Project Goldfish, the greatest expense is my own salary. For the purposes of the budget, I’m choosing to pay myself more than I ever made as a reporter but, considering that I used to work for compliments and ulcers, that is not saying very much.

Still, I am combing through these numbers trying to find anything that can be cut. I am used to working for a lean operation. In my last job, all supply orders for the bureau had to be pre-approved. I understand. For all they knew, I was stockpiling reporters’ notebooks and selling them out of the trunk of my car for 25 cents a pop. Printer and fax cartridges? That’s big money. Then, there was the fateful day I accidently dumped an entire cup of coffee on my computer keyboard. For me, this was just another day, as I routinely spill coffee on myself, skirts, coats, desks, tote bags and the floor. The coffee short-circuited the keyboard. I figured this was a pretty essential piece of equipment for a breaking news organization, but the response from the home office was, can’t you just make due? Oh, sure. How about I make due by picking up the $14 tab for a new keyboard?

The point, though, is that I know how little it takes to produce good copy and get it out to an audience. I’ve already taken on the cost of domain registration and hosting services. I am designing the site myself, and hitting up friends and family for help when needed. With that in mind, I start playing the game of "Do I really need this?":

• Office furniture: A new desk and chair are needed if I hire a reporter and that person works out of the office. Do I expect my reporter to be sitting in my office or out in the field, conducting interviews and attending meetings? I’d be perfectly happy if my reporter made her office on the bar of The Redwood or tucked away in an anonymous Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

• An office for that furniture: There’s no reason why a home office wouldn’t work for Project Goldfish. I’m budgeting for the second bedroom of a two-bedroom apartment or bungalow. Ohh, how about a beach bungalow? As for a mailing address, there is the neighborhood UPS store where I can get a mailbox with a street address.

• Insurance: Honestly, this is where I could use some professional guidance because I have questions like this:

-- What is the extent of insurance coverage I need for a home office?

-- How much general liability insurance do I need if I have one or two employees?

-- Do I need to change my auto insurance if I use Lola for work purposes?

-- Do I need to provide some sort of auto insurance if I have an employee use her own car for work purposes? (Also, I think I’m required to reimburse for gas. Yes?)

The next step is calculating how I make money at this thing. I assume, at the moment, that the site will partially be ad-supported. What I am struggling with is whether to make part of the website subscription-based. I have been playing with the idea of creating a “pro subscription.” For example, maybe articles are free but copies of reports and ordinances, video footage and interactive elements are behind a paywall. As I’ve previously mentioned, I do think readers should have some skin in the game. However, I received an email from a survey participant who identified a problem with a paywall for such materials:

"I would not be willing to pay for exclusive online topics because you then have a poorer populace who remain uneducated on the behind-the-scenes activities in the headlines."

I completely agree. The point of Project Goldfish is to inform the public. Why would I create something that falls short of that mission?

Evolution

If you haven't done so already, check out AliceMWalton.com.

It's just like the blog, but better.

Let's Be Social

Work on Project Goldfish is moving forward. This week I spent a considerable amount of time setting up social media accounts for the website. A Twitter account, Facebook page and YouTube channel now exist for Project Goldfish. Well, exist for the project under the project’s real name (so sneaky!).

One idea I had when thinking about the function of the Twitter account was to take a cue from The Chicago Tribune and the Col. Tribune avatar. Two years ago, a four-person team at The Tribune came up with the idea of creating this character to represent the newspaper’s social media presence. The name, Col. Tribune, was a nod to Col. Robert McCormick, the newspaper’s legendary owner who died in 1955. (He is also the namesake and financier of my scholarship so, thank you Col. McCormick.)

Bill Adee, editor of digital media at The Trib, describes this character in Nieman Reports:

“Meet 'The Colonel.' He’s a pretty dapper guy. In his early 50’s, he has worked for the Chicago Tribune and lived in the city his whole life—well, except for that stint in the Army Reserves. That’s how he earned his nickname. He started out as a copy boy in the newsroom, worked his way up, and now he’s Web ambassador for chicagotribune.com.”

Adee goes on to describe the Colonel’s favorite place to get a steak, his morning reading habits and even where he lives. Today, Col. Tribune has more than 857,000 followers on Twitter.

With that in mind, I am in the process of creating a character who will tweet for the Project Goldfish site. She is a reporter and a workaholic. She is tech-savvy but clings to old school journalistic values. Beyond that … it’s difficult for me to get creative and make up this person. At first I thought she would be a plain Jane, with a fat cat at home and half a turkey sandwich in her purse. On the weekends she and her boyfriend, an L.A. city firefighter, would go hiking through the canyons. I lived with that version for a while but ultimately decided that was too boring.

This character’s life is still in the process of being created, but her face and likeness are becoming a reality. An artist friend has put together sketches of what she will look like. The sketches are coming out great and it is exciting seeing my ideas become something tangible. Of course, characters and pictures are just one small part of social media. The heavy lifting is building an audience and leveraging that audience to improve content. This was the subject of a class I took last quarter, Building Networked Audiences.

Building Networked Audiences was the class that took an academic eye to social media. For example, Facebook is an undirected graph whereas Twitter is directed. Fascinating, right? We studied search engine optimization, link strategy and ways to determine the "influence" of Twitter and Digg.

Content is important, too. I think it is about being timely and relevant. I follow a certain number of news organizations on Twitter and I’m sure I will add a lot more when I return to reporting in another two or three months. However, the accounts that tweet "news" hours after the event are going to be eliminated. If I’ve already read a story on the Los Angeles Times’ website, what is the point in tweeting about it hours later? It’s not as if it’s breaking news at that point. NBC4 gave me a perfect example of this today. As I'm writing this, it’s about 3 p.m. The ESPY Awards took place last night. This is not timely:

So what is to become of the Project Goldfish avatar? What should she be like, and how will that help set the tone and culture of Project Goldfish?