Metro I-4 News

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Metro I4 News is happy to announce we’ve added another affiliated blog: Re/Creating Tampa.

From the blog’s About page:

This is a blog about all the stuff on the internet that catches my attention. I try to focus on Tampa, but my mind wanders. The other pages, Eating Tampa, Greening Tampa, Reading Tampa, and Screening Tampa are more focused.

Re/Creating Tampa is ably written by David Davisson, who says of himself: “I write for my blogs and have started working on a book. When I’m not writing or looking at stuff, I’m working slowly on re-habbing our house in Seminole Heights.”

In the midst of “deadlines and commitments,” I neglected to mention Lakeland Local topped 500 posts.

Surprisingly, the majority weren’t maps.

I’ve been working behind the scenes on some revisions and additions, but I’m just going to tease you today. Look for more news tomorrow.

Meanwhile, some CSX news of interest:

You hear the numbers on the news. Banks and mortgage companies counting revenues lost. Economists writing about recession, upticks, and downturns.

Suzanne is moving to Lakeland. She knows the story firsthand:

We’ve all heard about the astronomical numbers of foreclosures currently clogging our courts. All over the US, people are in dire straights and losing their homes. Folks, count us in those numbers. Today, I’m going to tell you our story to put a face on what is happening everywhere. - Suzanne Sez

An important part of a story is often where it happened. With that in mind, I’ve created another map. When appropriate, an article will include a link to a map point to help you understand where the story was set. This should enable residents to quickly find news in their neighborhood. By the end of the year, with most Lakeland Local articles included on the map, there will be yet another way to find a link to a story you remember happened near you, but you’ve forgot the date.
Here’s the current map with most 2008 articles already linked. In the future look for the Lakeland News Map 2008 link at the bottom of an article.
CommunityWalk Map - LakelandLocal.com Articles

The Army Navy Surplus store at 619 North Florida Ave caught fire this evening. Within minutes of an explosion there were eyewitness accounts on the Ledger forum and YLakeland blogger, Cat Carter, had photos.

Of course, main stream media was there, but digital cameras and Flickr have really lent an immediacy to “eyewitness accounts.”

I had planned my Lakeland.net review for today, but I’ve decided to put it off until the “official site opening” on March 1st. It’s too early to judge the design or operation. Each day it is easy to see they’re doing fixes and updates.

I’ve had a couple of emails with Bart Ross, one of the owners of Lakeland.Net. He help clarify some things about the site:

• Lakeland.net is a for-profit with Ross and a partner as owners. Ross is a lifelong resident of Lakeland.

• On business listings Ross wrote, “Any business that has a brick and mortar location can be listed as long as they are in Polk County. We will not do home based businesses because of the issues with locations.”

• On ad costs Ross wrote, “Job listings and classifieds may be a paid service later, but we are not sure yet. We may just use the free plus model again, but we are really hoping the community responds and will help drive our site and what it has to offer.”

• On possible features Ross wrote, “There are lots of features currently planned, including a community calendar, a new profile system that will allow users to have public or private profiles, searchable restaurant menus, etc. With that said we hope the community will help us determine what THEY want to see. Our site is here to serve them and us as people that live in the community.”

•

I have played with the site a few times. I think it’s well-designed and could be very useful. Of course, as they play with the code before the official opening, I have a couple of suggestions:

1) Focus on unique content. The news page is nice, but nothing we can’t find on the Ledger or any of a thousand other websites.

2) Really highlight your planned not-for-profit listings. It would be wonderful to have an easily accessible central place to them.

3) How about a “new since you last logged-in” feature. That site could get so busy you’d miss a lot of new content.

4) My pet peeve — almost anonymous posting. The Ledger already has a huge forum. Make yours different. Insist on real names. People should be able to stand behind what they post.

5) Add the City of Lakeland’s URL to your Lakeland Government re-direct page.

That’s all for now. Look to the first week of March for a full review.

The Ledger has a community forum. Polk Voice has locally written blogs. Craigslist has online ads for Lakeland residents. They’re all about to get a new neighbor.

Lakeland.net, a ten year old site, has been redesigned as a community portal. The new look was recently unveiled by the local design firm Blue Marlin Group. The company performed the work for a group of investors, and one member of BMG, Dan Gilbert, has been assigned to spearhead the development of the site.

The new owners of Lakeland.net have changed the philosophy behind the decade old site. Gilbert said the site previously focused on promoting select businesses. The new site will feature free business listings, forums, event calendars, help wanted advertisements, photos, and more. Gilbert said the site will adapt to the requests of the community and will be “family friendly.” Gilbert said his “long term dream is that local people will use it as their homepage.”

According to Gilbert, the news section of the site will carry no original reporting. The site will feature wire news, free news feeds, and possibly local news from the Tampa Tribune’s Polk County News Blog.

The majority of the site will feature user created content. “People can post events, add job listings, and classifieds,” said Gilbert. The base level business listings are free; containing just name, address, and phone number, but Gilbert said additional features can be purchased. He added that while help wanted listings are currently free, the company plans to eventually add a fee. “We’re going to keep it inexpensive. The general public can do it all free, ” Gilbert said.

Lakeland.net hopes to be not only a business portal, but a resident meeting place. Forums have been created on a variety of topics, and the site features an easy method to upload photos. Users can also add reviews of any listed business. Gilbert said he expects some reviews will be negative, but the company wants “constructive criticism.”

Toward that goal, all user-created content will be scrutinized. Gilbert said Lakeland.net will keep a close eye on all advertisers, forum posts, and news feeds. A committee was formed to oversee content. Gilbert said the group will decide what news feeds are carried and will judge the appropriateness of advertisements and forum posts. “We want it to be family friendly. A good reflection on Lakeland,” Gilbert said. He said the committee will pull posting privileges from any user who breaks the guidelines.

Gilbert said the site will have a permanent limitation: no advertising from businesses outside of Polk County. He said that there is also no government website listings, but that “it may happen down the road.”

Gilbert acknowledged that the classifieds and forums are similar to the Ledger’s Polk Voice, forums, and classifieds. “I guess it would be competition. However, that’s not what we’re looking to be. We would like it if the Ledger joined in.”

The site’s official kick-off is March 1st, but registration is already open for residents and businesses. There is no cost for residents and the basic business listings. Gilbert said anyone with questions can contact him at (863) 602-8995.

•

Disclaimer: I have not previously worked with BMG. I don’t know if I have worked with any member of the silent investors who own the site. I’ve created an account at Lakeland.net and will post a review of the site this weekend. In the future I may add content to Lakeland.net, but I won’t add Lakeland Local’s RSS feed.

Since this week has had more posts about blogging than Lakeland, allow me to step away from CSX and Commerce one more time. Josh Hallett tagged me with a meme. The beauty of memes is they offer peeks the the life and philosophies of those tagged. While it may cause some concern to school board members, memes also evolve. Josh tagged me with the 4×4 meme. I’m to offer four answers to four questions. Since I didn’t travel much in 2007 and even I don’t find what I eat to be interesting, I’m going to alter a couple of the questions…

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1) Bartender
2) Cartographer
3) Educator
4) weekly newspaper Editor

Four Careers I Wanted, but Let Life Lead me Away

1) Aerospace Engineer
2) Bookstore Owner
3) Cryptographer
4) Shortstop

Four TV Shows I DVR:

1) Chuck (How could I not?)
2) Dexter
3) Major League Baseball
4) Simon and Simon

Four Favorite Places I’ve Stood:

1) Rue St-Denis & Avenue du Mont-Royal Est in Montreal
2) Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco
3) Beside my Mother in a March on Washington, DC
4) At the foot of some stairs in Louisville, KY watching my bride descend.

Four People Whose Answers I’d Like to See:

1) Lorrie
2) Robert
3) Aaron
4) Tom

Tag, you’re it. Of course, you’re welcome to adjust the questions.

Since this week has had more posts about blogging than Lakeland, allow me to step away from CSX and Commerce one more time. Josh Hallett tagged me with a meme. The beauty of memes is they offer peeks the the life and philosophies of those tagged. While it may cause some concern to school board members, memes also evolve. Josh tagged me with the 4×4 meme. I’m to offer four answers to four questions. Since I didn’t travel much in 2007 and even I don’t find what I eat to be interesting, I’m going to alter a couple of the questions…

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1) Bartender
2) Cartographer
3) Educator
4) weekly newspaper Editor

Four Careers I Wanted, but Let Life Lead me Away

1) Aerospace Engineer
2) Bookstore Owner
3) Cryptographer
4) Shortstop

Four TV Shows I DVR:

1) Chuck (How could I not?)
2) Dexter
3) Major League Baseball
4) Simon and Simon

Four Favorite Places I’ve Stood:

1) Rue St-Denis & Avenue du Mont-Royal Est in Montreal
2) Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco
3) Beside my Mother in a March on Washington, DC
4) At the foot of some stairs in Louisville, KY watching my bride descend.

Four People Whose Answers I’d Like to See:

1) Lorrie
2) Robert
3) Aaron
4) Tom

Tag, you’re it. Of course, you’re welcome to adjust the questions.

If you missed the Polk County Bloggers meeting last night then you missed four meetings. To think our small group has more than tripled in size after just a few meetings. Our first meeting was only a year ago.

Four of the bloggers present that night are still active blogging in Polk County. And we were all there tonight.

Let’s see if I can remember everyone:

Steve, Aaron, Darby, Jess, Barry, Billy, Josh, “Bubba Bog”, Kristen Freaking Jane*, Travis, Emily, Mike, Matthew, Tom, and last, but certainly not least, Lorrie

We also had a couple of attendees looking to start blogs, but I’ll leave them unnamed until they’re ready for their debut.

The group was so large that multiple meetings happened during the meeting. Side conversations and splinter groups quickly formed. We’re normally a pretty laissez faire group, but tonight was like herding cats. Interesting, well spoken cats. I know I missed conversations I wish I could have heard.

We spoke a bit about technology. Josh handled most of those questions. I came home and realized that over the year plus I’ve set up feeds and such, and forgot most things days after doing so. I’m going to do some housecleaning over the next week. I’m apologizing now if I break something you liked.

We bantered some about making money on your blogs. If any reader has figured out how…let us know.

We made snide comments about the bloggers who didn’t attend or left early. Ok, we didn’t. We’re bloggers. We save that stuff for our blogs.

We had swag. (Thanks Darby.)

Generally, I think everyone had a good time.

Finally, if you have blogging questions and are not up to making the group meeting…I can meet you over lunch or after school, and explain what I can.

•

Lorrie has a write up and Josh has a photo.

•

“Bubba Bog” is the name he uses on his blog, and I’m not going to use anything else here. *Kristen Freaking Jane” is what her husband calls her, and who am I to say different?

I don’t know if the stop sign at McDonald and Success is a new traffic department tactic, a gang tag, or a more subtle Ron Paul sign.

It does lead to another housekeeping post. I have an update on the problem with commenting. It wasn’t fixed. Thanks to some help with my wife, I discovered all Internet Explorer users were not seeing an important error message. That meant they thought their comments had been accepted, and I was sent no notice of an error.

I really do believe I have that problem fixed. Let’s hope I catch the next one much earlier.
Here’s a zoom in on the stop sign if you had no idea what I meant above.

It seems we’ve lost some comments. On average, this site gets a few hundred spam comments a day. Not too long ago I added a text captcha to slow down the spammers.

Now it looks some readers lost their comments. This blogging software failed to inform the readers that their comments didn’t save and needs to be reentered.

If you have a comment that failed to show up on the website, I apologize. I believe I now have the kinks worked out.

Just remember when you comment — the word “vote” is very important.

It seems we’ve lost some comments. On average, this site gets a few hundred spam comments a day. Not too long ago I added a text captcha to slow down the spammers.

Now it looks some readers lost their comments. This blogging software failed to inform the readers that their comments didn’t save and needs to be reentered.

If you have a comment that failed to show up on the website, I apologize. I believe I now have the kinks worked out.

Just remember when you comment — the word “vote” is very important.

In light of the Polk County Bloggers meeting (see below) I’d like to highlight three area blogs that don’t get a lot of press:

Bog It Blog features “information left from the Flotsam of Life” and is written by:

52 year old father of 5, grandfather of 2, married for 32 years to a wonderful woman. Twelve year veteran of Radio Broadcasting. Worked as Operations Manager, Production Manager, News Director, Morning and Afternoon Drive Time Announcing. Later, Involved in Micro-Computers. Worked as a Computer Consultant and Advisor. Been involved in Computers from the beginning. Believe it or not, trained in collators, card punch machines, mini-main frames, main frame computers. Experienced in early computer kits, 8 bit to 16 bit to present computers. Currently Disability-Retired. Living his life ON-LINE to the world! — Bog it Blog About Page

Knot a Blog is all about the ties that local resident Michael Segers owns.

I had very few ties, and as expensive as ties are, I began shopping for ties in thrift shops. One day, I found a tie covered with script and drawings from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. Something clicked. Wearing a tie like that could be fun.
What a novel idea! Wearing a tie could be… fun? — From the first entry on Dec. 12, 2005

Wendy Usually Wanders is about “An old RV, a dog, a cat and a crazy woman travel the US” except lately Wendy has spent a lot of time not wandering in Lakeland. In a recent post she writes of a trip to our local Goodwill store:

Ummmm…I wasn’t feeling much good will when Judy and I went to the Goodwill store. The prices are crazy! Almost everything in there is cheaper new. I don’t get it. Is it some sort of a tax write-off boondoggle? I saw a couple of “executives” in an office…all dressed up and their cars out front were expensive. This is a HUGE store. It must cost a fortune to heat, cool and light, plus it was way over-staffed. This place must benefit somebody, but it’s not poor people or anyone who wants to buy stuff at a good price! Does anyone know why Goodwill is like this? — Jan 25, 2008

That leads to a reminder that the next Polk County Blogger meeting will be this Monday, February 4th at 6:30 p.m. at Polk County’s Unofficial Blogger’s Haven — Black and Brew ( 205 East Main Street )
You don’t need to write a blog to attend. You’re invited if you’re reading this, or if someone is reading it to you.

Barry Friedman, the “Managing Editor/digital” for the newspaper formerly known as the Lakeland Ledger, last night asked of his readers, “Do we cover too much from one side of the county or the other? What should we cover in your home town that we’re not covering currently?”

Now, I read my hometown newspaper every day, and I’ve got an opinion or two. Plus, Barry mentioned me by name, so I’ll throw my two cents in his general direction.

Dear Barry,

First, thanks for asking. Readers always love to be involved in the newspaper coverage process. I hope you get dozens of responses. I’ll bet the short answer to almost every response will be “cover more of my town and less of their town.” They will all be correct. The Ledger does feature far too little (insert your favorite map direction here) Polk coverage. We’re talking about a county the size of a state. The Ledger doesn’t have the news hole to cover the whole county; unless the advertising department is selling more ads than they were this morning. (That isn’t a swipe at the ad crew. I am sure they’re selling all they can in this current climate.)

What’s a new Editor to do? The local newspaper is still trying to be the reporter of record. That was true when I fell in love with newspapers. But I am old. Maybe it is time to try another model. Free room in the paper for what matters most to local residents — local news.

I have a safe idea to open some room: forget the latest celebrity gossip. It was on 10 channels, 14 Web sites, and numerous discussion boards long before the Ledger placed it above the masthead. Unless the celebrity is from Polk County, lived in Polk County, or was arrested in Polk County, and you can spin a Polk County angle…let the paparazzi and celeb sites handle the news.

I also have a radical idea to open additional news holes: Drop the international news. It is old news before the Ledger prints it on dead trees. We no longer get all our news from paper. The International press has reported it; the talking heads have discussed it; the documentary channels have dissected it; the Ledger is just reprinting the news wire, and New York Times reports.

What about the national news? It is a maxim that “all news is local.” In the 21st century we can usually read the local report of every event. A bridge falls in Minnesota and we can get much better detail from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Our Polk County paper simply can’t cover such events. Now, I know some national news, especially from D.C., will have local angles. Our paper would simply lead with that angle.

That still leaves a place where a Polk County paper can compete. Imagine if every story was local? There would be room for all the East Polk news, West Polk coverage, rural concerns and urban interests.

You mentioned that I think the Ledger needs to “focus more on Lakeland.” Yes, but not exactly as that sentence would lead you to believe. Not too long ago, my local news box was filled with some odd East Polk edition of the Ledger. I found the stories interesting. They even get a comic or two I don’t see in my edition.

Here’s where I think the Ledger can shine. Separate the sections into East Polk, West Polk, State, Sports, Human Interest, and Classifieds. Give us all the same edition of the newspaper. Don’t fall into the middle of the East vs. West Polk news coverage debate. Maybe we’d learn why we have differences instead of blindly complaining about “the other side.”

Pump life back into the columns. The columnists are your home run hitters. They have a local angle we can’t get from any other news source.

What about those without the news channels and access to the Internet? If it is a matter of choice, then they have chosen to pull back from the news. If it is a matter of expense, then they can discover the joy of the local public library. It was my lifeline to the world for many many years.

Looking at the Ledger’s website you’ll see the international and celebrity news is downplayed under the local and state news. Maybe it is time the print edition follows that model?

Yours in local coverage,

Chuck