The Rapidian Dev Blog

Recap: Rapidian ice cream social

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:44:00 -0400

Photo by George Wietor
@mixedfeelings on Twitter: “Big group here @ Grand Central Market for the #Rapidian ice cream social. Not a lot of ice cream, though.”

Today, we had our first open gathering of the summer at the Grand Central Market. We called it an ice cream social, taking it at face value that if you’re sitting in GCM where munchies abound, you’ll naturally want to indulge in ice cream, gelato, sorbet or a good sammich.

Attendance was at a solid 15, and as the discussion continued, it became more intimate. We had framed the social as a discussion with guest facilitator Ian Storey, a Ph. D. candidate at Colorado State University who looks at citizen journalism and political economy.

The goal was to show our reporters the other side of the citizen journalism coin: The observers and academics. However, due to faulty directions on my part, Ian didn’t make it.

We switched gears. Topics ranged from The Rapidian under review by the Knight Foundation to perceptions of the term “citizen journalist” to The Rapidian’s currency when reporters try to land interviews.

Several things that came out of this:

In professional journalism, there’s been some struggle coming to terms with “citizen journalists.” At our social, nobody seemed to have an issue calling themselves citizen journalists. One photographer felt it was moot, paralleling it to the advent of digital photography; anybody with a digital camera can say they’re a photographer, but does that make him less of a professional photographer? He doesn’t think so.
- We asked how reporters present reporting for The Rapidian to sources. The Rapidian is still growing and not everyone has heard of it (yet), so the sure-fire way of presenting it—no questions asked—is as a local publication.

Unlike freelancing for other news outlets, if you decide to pursue a story for The Rapidian and it meets the hyperlocal news parameters, there’s a 100% chance that it will be published. You also set your own agenda—coverage to publishing—which is not always the case with freelancers. Rapidian contributors’ voices are less filtered, and this can be empowering.

Reporters do feel an obligation to see pieces through in a timely manner when they interview their sources and use The Rapidian name. However, stories don’t always pan out, or real life tears into the picture and ideas need to be shelved. Our reporters felt guilty but were unsure about how to wrap things up. In those situations, proper protocol would be to inform sources.

How do reporters deal with prior review? Contributors want to make a positive impact with their reporting, but they don’t want to be a mouthpiece for the businesses and individuals they interview. With as loose of a structure as The Rapidian, reporters can respond to requests for prior review by offering to share quotes, but not the entire story.

To get us thinking about sustainability, Rapidian Mom Laurie Cirivello has charged us with raising $10K this fiscal year. One idea staff had tossed around was putting a donate badge on all submissions, but we shied away on the assumption that it would be intrusive for the reporter. We were overwhelmingly assured that it was a fair trade-off.

What we learned from today is we need to create a resource page for reporter FAQs, from advice when stories are shelved to how to deal with prior review. This wouldn’t just be for the reporters. It would also give inquiring interview subjects an idea of reporter obligations (we say this loosely because ultimately, every contributor is a free agent, and The Rapidian is the platform).

Upon mentioning the $10K, our attendees immediately clobbered the issue. Gem of the day: We’re blessed with talented and willing volunteers.

SUPERLATIVES: An appreciation party

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:46:00 -0400

by Denise

Last night was our first appreciation party, *cleverly* named SUPER-lative! We’re pretty zeroed in on Grand Rapids, but from what staff has heard, it seems like The Rapidian is some sort of experimental journalism darling right now. Flattered, of course, but none of it is even remotely possible without the obvious: Our reporters.

We’re two months shy of our first birthday, and we couldn’t have done any of this without our volunteers on all different levels. Among the many unsung heroes of The Rapidian are those who email us feedback about the site, our devoted editors (Darin Estep, Mark Rumsey, Kolene Allen, Rickey Ainsworth, Jen Proctor, Linda Gellasch, Roberta King, Kevin DenDulk and Maryann Lesert), cheerleaders of the project and the most unsung of them all: Ron Woldyk, our Web developer.

Staff is putting together a video article of our recent appreciation party. Stay tuned to The Rapidian; it’ll be up early next week!

Variation on the NPO training session

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:53:00 -0400

by Denise

Yesterday, we had our first nonprofit training session this summer. The typical NPO training session runs 60-90 minutes and covers how The Rapidian works and tips for content submission. The last part of the training is devoted to a rundown of how to distribute content through social media.

So why was this training session different? I recently joined the board of the Midtown Neighborhood Association, and since June, I’ve been posting content as a nonprofit neighbor. Our constituency is geographic, and since there are such gaps between each distribution of the quarterly newsletter, our goal is to keep neighbors connected through timely news.

As the primary contact for MNA’s Rapidian account, I’ve registered with a NPO mindset. The observations our staff has garnered has prompted us to add two new fields to NPO profiles: A place to link to your organization’s Twitter and an area to add a condensed mission statement.

Perhaps more interesting is what I’ve found from adding content.

Various board members and MNA staff contribute to The Rapidian, but as the gatekeeper, I want to make sure that published articles have news value. We submit content at least once a week, and my contributions are written as news reports or local life features. I’m co-opting a comparison that Laurie Cirivello (The Rapidian’s mom) used: Taking advantage of an online platform doesn’t mean using it as a billboard.
While savvy NPOs use both our story bank and calendar, they should suggest coverage of their own events *if* it’s not something they could cover as well as a reporter.
Many times, we see NPOs publish pre-coverage of their event but rarely post-coverage of how their event went. We see groups market volunteer opportunities but few stories on who came to the volunteer event and lessons learned or profiles on consistent volunteers. Boys & Girls Clubs of Grand Rapids Youth Commonwealth has done an especially commendable job covering their own events and events outside of their organization that interest their constituency. They often conduct interviews with their youth and staff to incorporate into articles.
NPO representatives also have access to materials that reporters would have a harder time organizing.

Example 1: The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts puts out very compelling video interviews with artists from all over the country who stop by GR to install their exhibit. Although all exhibits are clearly at the UICA, the video interviews focus on artists’ motivations.
Example 2: I experienced my first Festival of the Arts earlier this summer. This annual event, known simply as “Festival” to GR natives, has taken place for 41 years. Had Festival signed up as a nonprofit neighbor on The Rapidian, an amazing story would have been a photo essay of 40 years worth of Festival advertisement posters.

So cin cin, fellow nonprofiteers! Here’s to bountiful content that asks the question, what is useful to our audience?

First in Rapidian history!

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:40:00 -0400

by Denise

Forgive the theatre in our title, but it’s true! On B3 of yesterday’s edition of The Grand Rapids Press was the first Rapidian article to make it to print. Midtown Neighborhood Association authored the piece about the Fulton Street Farmers Market. You can read the story here.

Catalyst Radio

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:33:00 -0400

by Denise

Catalyst Radio has been airing on 88.1 WYCE for five years. Last week was the first show since it made its new production home with The Rapidian.

Traditionally, the format for Catalyst Radio has been a laundry list of the latest media-related news, an interview segment with a nonprofit and an events calendar. Linda Gellasch and Tom Schwallie wore multiple hats as the producers, engineers and co-hosts for the show.

While the format under The Rapidian hasn’t changed too much, the first segment will now be a dialogue about recent media developments. Interview segments will now also feature Rapidian reporters and stories. Linda and Denise will host the weekly show.

You can catch the show at noon every Friday on WYCE 88.1 or streaming live.

Matching capacity and execution

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:36:00 -0400

by Denise

A couple of weeks ago, a student working with Chicago Now to implement outposts in the Gold Coast and Old Town contacted us. She wanted to conduct an interview via email. Her questions were heavy ones, and it took me two days to answer all eight. The last one, however, is a lesson I’ve been learning since we launched. It’s been hammered in with all the unforeseen hurdles that have come up in The Rapidian’s short life.

8. Any advice for those just starting a community news site?

Make sure to match your capacity with your execution. Most groups starting community news sites are limited in resources and have small staffs. It’s breathtaking to see excitement and ideas bubbling up around the concept of citizen reporting, and while you’ll get tons of feedback from every corner of your community, it’s important to be more than an inch deep. We all want to show people we’re being responsive to their feedback, but freeing capacity to pursue fresh ideas requires streamlining processes and hammering out patterns. Be patient, and you’ll create a deep foundation to go miles wide. After all, branches only grow as far as their roots.

I know: The answer was a bit flowery. But I stand by my point.

At last week’s staff meetings, we outlined our goals for summer and fall and then took a critical look at our inefficiencies as a staff. What took up most of our time? Was there any streamlining solution or way to distribute the work so we could free up more capacity?

By the end of summer, we hope to have accomplished the following:

Host at least two town halls
Build up to a baseline of at least three contributions from reporters per day (we currently receive between 0-6 contributions from reporters—excluding nonprofits—each day)
Set up a basic volunteering structure beyond fulfilling editorial needs
Launch our Miro Community site
Release the first iteration of The Rapidian’s friend feed so users can see who subscribes, comments and rates their content.

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:48:00 -0400

by Denise

We know, we know. Crickets. That’s how quiet, we’ve been. Since November, a lot of things have happened. We’ll try harder at posting regular dev updates. In the meantime, here’s a laundry list of most of what we’ve done (click on the links to skip ahead):

Content Facilitator
BETA II
Press pits
Instructors’ manual
SW bureau
SE bureau
February Flickr competition
Catalyst Radio
Twitter RSS feed: @VeryLocal
GRPress collaboration on town hall

CONTENT FACILITATOR

Matthew Russell joined our core staff in December as the content facilitator. Matt also works as a news/web editor for The Advance. He’s well-known in these here parts for his delicious vegan cookies, experiments with kombucha and rounds out our staff as a bike commuter.

BETA II

Our site took a day off on Dec. 14, 2009 and returned the next day decked out in beta II features. To find out about changes, improvements and additions, take a look at New Media Planner George Wietor’s staff editorial.

PRESS PITS

We held our first press pit in November and have continued at a rate of one per month. An active reporter presents at each press pit about his or her process and tips. Afterward, we break out into smaller groups. Originally, press pits were intended to bring contributors and interested participants together to ask questions, brainstorm, share and mingle. Talking with our reporters, we realized that while there were many audience members who would love to contribute, they were intimidated by the idea of long, in-depth pieces and weren’t sure whether their story ideas would even garner an audience.

We had a great turnout in November, and that number started to dwindle to a core group with each subsequent gathering. We decided to try something different for March: A targeted press pit. It seemed that the more press pits we held, the less people needed a great deal of time to brainstorm, so for March, we asked two of our active reporters to present on their collaboration about development in the Heartside neighborhood. It was still the core group, but with much more participation and something for everyone, from registered users to seasoned contributors.

INSTRUCTORS’ MANUAL

Based on instructor feedback from the first half of the 2009-2010 academic year, we’ve created an instructors manual to answer common questions and help walk our instructor-editors through the editorial and publishing process. We have yet to create a section on the site for instructor resources and are planning on brainstorming with instructors at the end of the school year so we can ramp up for the 2010-2011 academic year.

SW BUREAU

SW had its first “friendraiser” on March 10 at the Cook Library Center to increase The Rapidian’s exposure in SW and the Hispanic community. We’re still working at community building and awareness about The Rapidian.

SE BUREAU

We are partnering with Lighthouse Communities for the SE quadrant. With this quadrant, we feel it’s important to establish a SE presence on The Rapidian before heavily recruiting volunteer contributors. We will be meeting with various nonprofits, neighborhood associations and community-based organizations to encourage them to utilize The Rapidian to the fullest. Once we have formed strong neighborhood partnerships, we’ll begin identifying potential reporters together.

FEBRUARY FLICKR COMPETITION

We held a low-key competition in February to increase and diversify contributions to our Flickr photo bank. Winners will receive a Rapidian t-shirt with a QR code that, when scanned, will take smart phone users straight to The Rapidian’s front page.

CATALYST RADIO

Catalyst Radio is a long-running program on WYCE Radio (one of the Community Media Center’s other branches). It has traditionally showcased nonprofits and community goings-on, starting with an overview of media developments, interview segment and closed out with an events calendar. The Rapidian will now play a part in the production. The first leg of the show will still be about media development and literacy but in dialogue form. The middle section will alternate between interviews, reporter showcases and audio stories. The events calendar will remain the same. First show to air in a couple of weeks.

TWITTER RSS FEED: @VeryLocal

After several tweeters asked us to set up a twitter feed for our content, we took the plunge and created @VeryLocal. You can read more about it in George’s staff editorial.

GRPRESS COLLABORATION ON A TOWN HALL

We facilitate a good many meetings: The local Drupal meetup, nonprofit Rapidian sessions and most recently, an indie PR session. They’ve all been sort of similar, but we’re partnering with The Grand Rapids Press to put on our first town hall. In journalism, town halls really sprouted out of the public journalism movement of the 1980s, early ’90s. The point was to translate awareness into meaning by physically bringing an audience together to discuss what a hyperlocal issue meant to them and whether there was any action that should come out of it.

We’re currently working on the details and are aiming for late April, early May, but both The Rapidian and The Grand Rapids Press are very excited about this.

There are a lot of other additions we’ve made, such as a weekly digest and weekly updates to all users and a weekly email of story pitches and goings-on (complete with potential questions) to reporters and editors on The Rapidian (we crosspost them on Facebook notes). We’re gearing up for spring and summer to increase our audience base and number of active contributors. We’ve created a user bar for the site since beta two launched. Most of all, we’re trying to hammer out routines so we can increase our capacity to tackle all the inspiring ideas we’ve received via feedback.

Surfing the Wave

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:15:00 -0500

by Denise

In late May, Google announced its newest application, Google Wave. This application is supposed to revolutionize the Internet. Google developers described it as what email would look like if it were invented now.

A combination of live email threading, instant messaging and wiki editing, Google Wave dazzled web developers and professionals across all disciplines. To boot? It’s open source. For everything there is to know about Google Wave, read Mashable’s complete guide.

After four months of drum roll, Wave debuted in late September. Since then, there’s been a bit of confusion. For anyone who’s watched the Google I/O presentation on Wave, it’s exactly as the video described. Due to the sparse number of people using Wave, it’s also created this sort of experience:

In the one-and-a-half months since Wave hit the scene, there’s been very little news about what developers are doing with it. Invites have been slow to come. After more than a month on Google Wave, I only recently got the ability to distribute 20 invites. As we’ve seen in the past, developers create the infrastructure, but the most innovative uses for web apps come from users. Perhaps Wave would benefit by widening its early adopter pool.

Anyway, The Rapidian and Wave: I personally hope that Wave will replace our static commenting system.

In this social media age, conversations on the same topic in different forums is common. This is amplified if the original source for the material (i.e.: an article on The Rapidian) has a barrier to entry (i.e.: site registration; take a look at Chris Apap’s article). The material is reblogged, tweeted and crossposted to Facebook. Although these sites aren’t specifically themed, Quantcast will tell you each are dominated by socioeconomic strats and more. With these walled-off conversations, there is little cross-pollination of diverse perspectives. Often times, instead of building on a conversation, the same ideas are being rehashed.

Waves are embeddable on blogs and Web sites. My hope is there will be tweaks so that users do not first have to register a Google account to register for a Wave account; for Wave to be compatible with the way user accounts have been structured (i.e.: all Rapidian site users agree to a no-anonymity policy)*; and for existing accounts to be easily ported over to Wave accounts on the hosting site. Assuming this pie in the sky is possible, if Wave becomes the universal platform for commenting, then everybody would be participating in the same town hall despite where in the interwebs they’re coming from.

For more cool ways people are using Wave, check out Lifehacker’s compilation.

*I realize this has its own issues because not all sites prescribe to a no-anonymity policy. It looks like the web is starting to trend this way, but maybe if more sites became OpenID hosts?

Playing in the "everybody sandbox"

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:47:00 -0500

by Denise

Having come from a journalism background, I care very much about the industry’s future. But as the citizen journalism coordinator for The Rapidian, I’ve heard more than one professional journalist say, “I get paid for my content.” Sometimes, it’s said with a degree of smugness and other times, with desperation.

Traditionally, citizen journalism has been viewed by professional journalists as the amateur hour. Regardless of what it is, it can still be useful to professional journalists.

As a citizen journalism experiment, we’ve billed The Rapidian as a supplement—not a replacement—to a dwindling local press. Together, journalists and citizens will have to find a solution to the shrinking news scape.

Of course, professional journalists are not only concerned about the existence of solid information but also the suspension of their livelihoods. Meanwhile, almost every journalism theorist and expert is emphasizing the importance of entrepreneurship in this uncharted and potentially innovative chapter of journalism. You see it in J-schools. You see it in tweets. You see it in posts like this. The self-starters will be the ones who get ahead in this rocky news climate. In the absence of a formula, the common advice is to catch up on your Flash, HTML and Wordpress. Register on Digg. Become the Jack and Jill of Internet trades.

But having taught social media classes where there was always at least one laid-off journalist, registering for a Flickr account just to keep up is not necessarily the right answer. After all, many people who are successful in social media are driven by their passion for the Internet or a particular hobby.

No, no.

This is where The Rapidian comes in. Not as journalists but as local citizens: Why not contribute to your hyperlocal news source?

I’m not saying report for The Rapidian the same way you would produce a story for WZZM. That’s up to you and your employer. There are so many opportunities to highlight topics that wouldn’t normally make it past the cutting room floor. Are you into architecture? Do an urban exploring photo essay that highlights unusual building cornices around town. Planning a family outing? Let other people (especially new families or new parents) know about family-friendly places and events like Eastown Street Fair. Use a medium that you are not expected to use in the professional newsroom. Photo slideshows, audio clips, comics, Flip-cam it up!

Professional journalists who are the most indisposable tend to be embraced outside of the newsroom. Take Tommy Allen of Rapid Growth Media or GRPress’ Gonzo. Not every journalist is granted a blog, though. Most journalists cover very specific beats.

The marketing hype around social media can basically be melted down to this: Social media is about making a brand of your life and interests. Twitter, Drop.io, Bit.ly—they’re just tools you can use.

The Rapidian is another of these platforms. It’s shaping up to be a positive place for the Grand Rapids community, and that community grows every day. Arguing for the validity of journalism as an industry doesn’t do much for saving specific jobs, but making yourself a fixture in your community makes you an asset to any company’s reputation.

Flickr photo by ShironekoEuro, used under Creative Commons

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:34:49 -0400

Veer | Ideas: Pumpkin orange by Joe Buckland

"I am a husband, father of two and journalist who would rather be a proponent of free speech than..."

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:15:48 -0400

“I am a husband, father of two and journalist who would rather be a proponent of free speech than sell my abilities for market value.”

- Drew Storey, The Rapidian’s first content facilitator

Goodbye to our dear friend

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:08:00 -0400

by Denise

Drew Storey, The Rapidian’s content facilitator, passed away unexpectedly yesterday.

Drew has been involved with The Rapidian since before it was named The Rapidian, when “Log Jam,” “Red Button,” “16th Bridge” and others were part of the naming smorgasbord. He spearheaded our editorial committee as a volunteer chair and hammered out a comprehensive editorial policy that has been the beacon for The Rapidian. After joining The Rapidian staff, Drew said being content facilitator was his dream job.

Although softspoken, Drew was all about community. He was an active volunteer with The Rapidian for nine months prior to being hired on, a board member for the Grand Rapids Community Media Center and also volunteered with many local groups to help with their communications.

He is survived by his high school sweetheart and wife of many years, Danielle (née Schmidt), and their young daughters Madison and Taylor.

The Rapidian will post information as we receive it in the coming days including how the community can make contributions to help with expenses and provide support to the family. For full obituary and memorial service details, please visit MLive.

The Rapidian: A Powerpoint

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:56:00 -0400

by Denise

George and I recently presented at the Alliance for Community Media’s central states conference. Many people asked for our slides, so here they are:

Batter's up!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:23:00 -0400

by Denise

As a part of our Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge grant, we’re not only establishing an online presence but also four neighborhood news bureaus hosted at community centers in each quadrant of Grand Rapids.

Dun dun dun! And the first news bureau to step up to the plate: Cook Library! Our neighbors over at the Grandville Avenue Academy for the Arts have generously staked out a corner in Cook Library to establish a news bureau in what is predominantly a Hispanic community (72.7% in 2000, not including undocumented immigrants).

While we’re eager to establish The Rapidian as an outlet for this community, there are very unique questions coming up in such a grassroots approach. We’re currently putting together a Grandville-specific committee with members from the community. In the meantime, here’s a smattering of the sort of questions we’ve been trying to answer:

Within the Hispanic community, who will the news bureau be most accessible to? Children? Teenagers? Adults?
What is the most effective way to let people know we’re a resource?
- Bilingual printouts?
- Word of mouth via children?
- Churches?
- Schools?
How do we create an applicable news bureau to the widest audience in the Hispanic community?
- Equipment?
- Software?
- Volunteers and procedures?
What type of media will the community most naturally gravitate toward? How can we encourage content creation and deemphasize equipment savvy?
How do we add to the site to reflect new content from this community?
How do we incorporate non-English content?
If we’re able to establish ourselves within this community, how do we then open it up to others in the SW quadrant?

Cook Library is the first “guinea pig,” but “hyperlocal” isn’t just a way to describe news content, it’s also the definition of grassroots community building. I’m pretty sure every bureau that is established will become a guinea pig in its own right.

Observations 1.5 weeks after beta launch

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:40:00 -0400

by Denise

Here at The Rapidian, we’ve tried to create a framework for honest and relevant content. A week and a half after launch is still too early to assess the outlet’s strengths and weaknesses, but here’s what we’ve learned:

Content type

Since the beta launch, we’ve discovered our site structure is not sufficient. Currently, we have three main categories: News, local life and opinion. News has the most sections, but the majority of content we receive are features that fit under local life. Of the rest of the submissions, it’s a toss up between news and opinion, but even news submissions aren’t necessarily time-sensitive.

Coverage

With little prodding, few people are initially going to look at citizen journalism as an opportunity to explore issues they don’t know the answer to. People are going to start out creating content on what they care about, what they know and what they’re involved in.

With our general target audience, it might be a hyped up assumption that citizen reporters are most valuable because they cover what’s not published by professional media. In professional journalism, the news section is the heftiest because news pieces are generally succinct. They don’t necessarily ask the audience to think critically as they consume. At least in the first week, we’ve realized that citizen reporters will naturally start out reporting on specific aspects of news that have not been explored in-depth by mainstream media.

Disclosure

So what does this mean? Ithaca College Student TJ Gunther asked, “what’s more important, freedom of citizens to report or truth and preservation of the Rapidian name?”

To us, these aren’t polar opposites; they go hand-in-hand. We’ll only have a name to preserve if our citizens report truthfully, and the citizen reporters will determine what reputation we have to guard.

However, we also need to do our part to tease out content that is relevant to everyone. Quality information can sometimes be obscured by first-person narratives that keep audiences from digesting content critically. To address this, once we take care of the quirks on the Web site, we’re going to add another text field to each submission that goes something like this:

Disclosure: What motivated you to create this piece? (300 characters max)

We’ve received pieces that use first person in the intro but then continue as features. We’ve also received some very self-promotional pieces that needed to be edited down. The disclosure text field is our attempt to nudge citizen reporters to focus on the subjects in their pieces rather than their first-hand experiences by providing a separate space for that.

Meet Drew!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:22:00 -0400

Drew Storey, the content facilitator for The Rapidian, is an ex-homecoming king who simply assumed he’d become famous one day. Surprisingly, none of the jobs he’s had since age 15—bus boy, pool boy, pizza boy, janitor, postal carrier, cab driver, park ranger, truck driver, warehouse worker, reporter—led to stardom.

While cutting his reporter chops at a local weekly community newspaper, Drew honed his limited, but natural writing abilities and found his voice. When a deeply-ingrained contempt for authority led to his termination, Drew dabbled in freelance writing, movie making and experimented with creating a local literary zine. He spends his free time reading, playing outdoors and simultaneously catering to his two daughters while cursing their names.

Having lived on the West Side for the past 6 years with his wife and two children, Drew couldn’t help but develop a pride for the City of Grand Rapids while feeding an appreciation for Polish food and beer. He looks forward to using the aforementioned experiences to help mold The Rapidian into something unique, relevant and inspiring.

#Rapidian

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:12:00 -0400

by Denise

A couple of days ago, in preparation for our beta launch, we tweeted that we were claiming #Rapidian for our own. If you saw breaking news going down in front of you, tweet with the hashtag #Rapidian to make it to our front page Twitter widget. We were expecting to see tweets like @TommyGSync’s:

Since then, we’ve had some surprising results. While most people use #Rapidian as a replacement for @TheRapidian, some particularly bright bulbs have used it to highlight pieces that actually don’t link back to The Rapidian. Before we even had a chance to turn our heads from the computer screen, @srdailey had made his mark on Rapidian history:

He had crossposted an opinion by Juliet Bennett Rylah on Founders Brewery forbidding a fundraising event on their premises for a politically controversial cause. After all, it is GR news.

Following the unveiling of The Rapidian, @ericbuist piggy-backed off the #Rapidian hashtag to bring attention to Spinneractive, a new interactive marketing group.

Then two posts from @hipphop:

All this to say that we asked our Twitter community to use #Rapidian for sharing newsworthy snippits, and you never know what sort of grab bag the interwebs will give you. These are the early stages, a time for experimenting. We’re looking forward to seeing how the community will determine what #Rapidian means.

HTML makes me feel so alive

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:16:00 -0400

by Denise

I was only partially kidding when I tweeted about HTML the other night. It’s been a while since we posted, but it’s because we’ve been in crunch mode. The site unveiling is just around the corner! So much to do!

Ron, George and I have been hacking away steadily on the Drupal site. Of course, Ron’s got the heaviest load with all that’s left to develop. George is working on graphics and permissions for the different roles we’ll have, from registered users to editors. I’m putting together all the static pages like terms and conditions, about us and pages that link back to the core static pages.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered Drupal through my work. In Portland, I worked on a project led by Denver’s Deproduction called the Open Media Project. Denver had already developed a Drupal tool set that allows site users to register for classes, reserve equipment, submit video content online and vote for favorite shows. Through a complicated algorithm, these votes (and many other factors) determine the cable access line up. They’re a pretty rad group that won a Knight Foundation News Challenge grant to generalize their tool set enough for other community media centers to adopt.

Drupal is a pretty overwhelming CMS. It can only be hosted on select web hosters and has an intense installation process. I used to attend the Portland Drupal meetups (I love and miss that group!) in hopes that I could ease into it. I came to understand some of the jargon used in Drupal, but when it came to web coding, forget it.

I like to mull over how I’m from Silicon Valley with family members that are all based in different branches of technology and engineering. In that respect, you could think of me as the black sheep since I shied away from anything to do with tech and web. My jobs just keep bringing me right back. Outside of design tools, I’m only proficient in HTML, am familiar with CSS and know I have to pursue PHP. I’ve been trying to build up to Drupal for two years.

It’s great because I feel like I’m getting kicked in the pants with this project. There is no time to be intimidated anymore, and as one of the admins for the site, I’m getting accustomed to the menus and set up. I’m seeing first hand just what Drupal is capable of and interacting with it. Ron is definitely doing all the heavy lifting here (we owe him something like a thousand cupcakes at this point), but even with my limited skills in HTML, I’m able to contribute. Together, we’re working on site interactivity and realizing what can be done in phase one by the time of the beta launch and what has to be done early in phase two.

Any structural things have to be done in PHP. I can’t help with that, but even with HTML, it’s amazing how one of the easiest web languages can be so incredibly empowering.

Promotional video for The Rapidian!

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:58:31 -0400

Check out the awesome Rapidian promo by Jen Proctor, super volunteer on The Rapidian steering committee! If you like it, consider embedding it!

WZZM13!

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:11:05 -0400

Check it out! Laurie and George were interviewed by WZZM13