You are in the movies now.
| Remember that what is sauce for the old newspaper can be a
golden egg for your little web site. It seems that many print
newspapers want to toss Monday editions out with the bathwater, not
because readers are missing, but because their high advertisers are
missing. The great newspaper consultant,
Alan Mutter suggests that newspapers theme the Monday edition
with a smorgasbord of sports aimed at young men -- who are typically
not newspaper readers -- and tap the advertisers who desire to reach
them. Now, here is the part that should interest us; Mutter suggests that the papers ADD a fan Web site where visitors would be encouraged to voice their opinions. He suggests the site could include a section for recording diaries from local players, blogs, fantasy leagues and he also suggests viral video and music but I’m not going into that. The above utility is easily set up in a matter of minutes on any web site where your host offers cpanel and Fantastico. Sure, you are going to be whipped seven ways from Sunday IF the local paper is launching into this venue because papers already have the best staff-written sports coverage. Yet, if you act right now you can be first at offering a place for the user-generated content on your web site Newspapers They employ large staffs of high-powered content-production specialists, but it has been my experience that people would prefer to hear their own voices rattle. Way, way back -- oh 20 years or more -- I needed to record the interviews I was doing over the phone, and I went to Radio Shack and purchased a sweet little recording device that snapped onto my phone in a jiffy and plugged into my tape recorder. These days there are pieces of software offered all over the web to do the same thing and then STREAM the fan-driven event from your web site, live. YES, YOU can be a live radio show host! Hey, for just a little bit more money you could be a live television show host! Think about it, you probably already have the technology on your machine to receive voice and audio. You can probably already "save" this, and it is just one more step beyond your expertise level to stream this back out to YOUR ever-loving public. Putting a simple video into a static web site is easy as pie when you get to it. The easiest way is to use a digital camera that offers a 'movie" option. Take a movie, change the name to something memorable, save it as a file to your web site, then use a "click here" link to let your little surfers bring up the file on their computer. |