Community News Digest, Portland, ME 2001
Partners:
The online service, the portal for the Portland Press Herald, the Morning Sentinel, the Kennebec Journal and WMTW Broadcasting, built and customized an innovative software system that allows community groups to generate content. MaineToday originally received funding to use existing KOZ software to improve opportunities for citizens to contribute news, responses and questions to the site. The Portland Press Herald had been using KOZ software to help community groups establish their own Web sites hosted on MaineToday and began the project seeking wider applications of KOZ’s easy-to-use format. Just months into the project, however, KOZ filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy. By that time – early 2001 – nearly 2,000 community groups were publishing on MaineToday. The staff turned its efforts to building a new software system and also figuring out the best way to use it to enhance community participation.
The result was “Bulletin Board,” software that connects the community directly to the site. Through an online application, groups can register to be regular contributors. The news they send in is posted on a special section of the site’s highly trafficked news pages in a box headlined, “Bulletin Board.” Initially, MaineToday incorporated Bulletin Boards onto three of its pages: Sports, 20 Below (aimed at teen users) and Outdoors. Contributions from those involved in such activities as youth soccer or snow-mobiling allow the site to serve thousands of users who are intensely interested in niche activities, which the paper has neither the staff nor the space to cover adequately. The site planned eventually to expand Bulletin Board to any other news page where it makes sense to have users providing content.
Contact:
Jessica Tomlinson
Online Community Organizer
MaineToday.com
50 Monument Square
Portland, ME 04101
Phone: (207) 822-4072
Email: jessica@mainetoday.com