Virginia Press Association, June 2007

           

Virginia Online News Briefs

 

Rappahannock Breaks Into Audio Reports

 

The weekly Rappahannock Record (RRecord.com) in Kilmarnock made use of its new digital recorder last week. The audio of a reporter interviewing a baseball coach whose team was headed to the state playoffs accompanied a slide show of scenes from the quarterfinal state playoff game. It's at http://www.rrecord.com/array-sprts-6-07.asp until Wednesday, June 13. The reporter, Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi, is covering another state playoff game in Radford this week and has taken along a video camera. Webmaster K.C. Troise is hoping for another first (video) next week!

 

- Fred Gaskins

 

Newport News Develops Continuous Multimedia

 

Dailypress.com continues to ramp its efforts at all-day multimedia production. The newspaper’s morning news desk, which begins to update the site before dawn each day, now provides dozens of updates per day. And the paper’s multimedia and photography departments continue to add new video elements daily; one set of videos, on a new roller coaster at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, has generated thousands of plays.

 

- Tom Davidson

 

Features Worth Noting on Member Web Sites

 

Story chat on delmarvanow.com (Eastern Shore News); submit your own photos at fredericksburg.com; new interactive crossword puzzle on Harrisonburg at dnronline.com; cell phone headlines from Staunton at newsleader.com; and photo albums at leesburg2day.com.

 

- Scott Bateman

 

Inexpensive Software Converts avi file to Flash

 

The Rappahannock Record also has been playing with an inexpensive piece of software called "Flash Video Studio 2" that converts an "avi" over to a flv or swf file. It allows you to add a different sound source. Has the basic bells & whistles and allows you to do a quickie presentation. Cost - $50. It's written only for a PC. Here's the url: www.flashvideostudio.com

- KC Troise, Webmaster

 

Industry Research

 

Newspapers Losing Online Ad Share

 

Newspaper Web sites might reap the most from local advertisers spending online but a new study reveals online newspapers are losing share. According to Borrell Associates, newspapers controlled more than 35% of all locally spent online advertising in 2006 but that dominance is declining: Online newspaper share decreased 8.2 points over a two year-period.

 

- Editor & Publisher Industry Highlight

 

Top 10 Sites Receive 99% of Online Ad $

 

Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN captured 85% of spending in 2006, while the top 10 Web sites attracted 99% of gross ad dollars. Elsewhere across the globe, the balance of power is more balanced. Add DoubleClick to Google and aQuantive to Microsoft and not only do you see the overall pie getting bigger, but also their market-dominating share of industry revenues.

 

Why? Because Fortune 500 companies spent just 6% of their collective ad budgets on the Internet last year. Consumers are spending one-third of their time with interactive media.

 

MarketWatch.com

 

VPA Newspaper Sites

 

Following is an alphabetical list of Web sites for active members of VPA. Future editions of the newsletter will list more sites. See the complete list at www.vpa.net.

 

Altavista Journal

 

Amelia Bulletin Monitor

 

Arlington Catholic Herald

 

Bedford Bulletin

 

Bland County Messenger

 

Bristol Herald Courier

 

Carroll News

 

Central Virginian

 

Chesterfield Observer

 

Clarke Times-Courier

 

 

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