Virginia Press Association, May 2007

Virginia Online News

Papers Act Quickly with Online Coverage of Tech

Virginia Newspaper Web sites generated heavy traffic regionally, nationally and internationally for the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. Sites such as roanoke.com provided time-stamped coverage andheavy packaging of the event. 

Daily Press Emphasizes RSS Feeds

The Daily Press in Newport News aggressively pushes RSS feeds throughout its site, including five-plus icons on its home page and 38 feeds on a users' guide page. The users' guide includes an explanation of RSS and links to outside resources.

Lynchburg Launches Entertainment Site

The News & Advance's weekly arts and entertaiment publication, The Burg, has a lively new web site put together by Chase Tanner and Mark Bailey of Media General's Interactive Media Division. Built with Expression Engine, it features an interactive calendar, movie reviews, sounds clips from local bands, and weekly content from the print version as well. Check it out at The-Burg.com. - Joe Stinnett

Richmond Launches inRich.com Portal Site

inRich.com debuted on April 25. The regional Web site provides original content and a large amount of additional content from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It also partners with eight other Media General Inc. sites in the Richmond area. The new site will have a greater focus on entertainment and lifestyle, classified and shopping. - Mary Ellin Arch

Industry Briefs

Cookie Counting Overestimates Size of Web Audience

comScore recently released a study that analyzes the validity of using cookie-based data to measure unique visitors and to guage the number of unique users that were served an ad by an ad server. The results indicate that Web site server logs that count unique cookies to measure unique visitors are likely to be exaggerating the size of the site's audience by a factor as high as 2.5, or an overstatement of 150 percent. - MediaPost.com

Record Number Go

to Newspaper Sites

According to custom analysis by Nielsen/NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America, more than 59 million people (37.6 percent of all active Internet users) visited newspaper Web sites during the first quarter of 2007, a record number representing a 5.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago. The full news release is here. - NAA

Orlando Sentinel

to Refocus on Web

The Orlando Sentinel will transform its newsroom into a Òcontinuous news and information engine ­ not as a Ônewspaper' organized along the lines of traditional newspaper sections,Ó Editor Charlotte Hall wrote in a memo to the newspaper's staff. The changes will ultimately eliminate about two dozen newsroom jobs. - NAA

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