Making timelines with Time Glider

Posted: February 24, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Great tools, Self-promotion | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments »

Last week a reporter working on a story about the past and future of Spokane’s downtown YMCA building wandered over to my desk. He wanted to do an online timeline to accompany it. I said sure. (Short attention span? Check out my new Showroom page to see the finished product.)

I had planned to use Dipity, which I’ve heard good things about. But when I created an account, I didn’t see how to manually build a timeline. At least with the free account. I saw a lot of auto-update ability tied into other media accounts (YouTube, Flickr, RSS feeds). But I wanted to add bullets as far back as 1890. I didn’t have a Google account back then.

The reporter had learned about Time Glider while at a Knight Digital Media Center multimedia seminar, so I decided to try it. Check out the result, then let’s go to the bullet points.

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Globe of Death

Posted: February 13, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Self-promotion, Video | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off


Description from spokesman.com:

Brothers Cody and Kyle Ives travel the world performing a motorbike stunt known alternately as the Globe of Steel, Globe of Thunder and Globe of Death. They performed in Spokane at the Inland Northwest Motorcycle Show and Sale on Friday, Feb. 12, 2010.

I shot and edited this Friday night at the Inland Northwest Motorcycle Show and Sale in Spokane. It was definitely a Plan B effort. I’d intended to get footage of Spokesman-Review columnist Doug Clark standing in the middle of this globe with rider Cody Ives buzzing around him. Let’s just say technical difficulties changed that.

At least I managed to salvage a little eye candy for speed geeks.

A day in the life

Posted: February 12, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Reflections, Work | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Off

What follows is a simple roundup of the various things I do in a day as an online producer at spokesman.com. I’ve been thinking of posting something like this for a long time. Say, maybe the two years I’ve been at it. Not to brag but to illustrate what someone in my position, at a regional newspaper in 2010, can expect to do. Maybe it will be useful for those thinking of entering the field and vying for a job at a newspaper.

Here’s my take from Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010:

  • Rewrote headlines for the web and tagged stories that exported from our print edition.
  • Posted breaking news to Twitter ahead of local competitors.
  • Edited and uploaded audio clips for a story that runs next week.
  • Created a slide show for a story running Friday: Operation Lake Pend Oreille Trout Catcher.
  • Posted breaking news about Bill Clinton’s arteries.
  • Brainstormed a strategy for news expected to break in the next couple days.
  • Posted more stories to the Web with excellent headlines.
  • Added addresses to approximately 100 stories from the past two weeks to feed a great new feature on the The Spokesman-Review’s mobile site.

That filled more than eight hours, especially the last one. Things not included that I regularly do: shooting and editing video; coding and visualizing data; posting content to our Facebook page; training colleagues in our content management system and other online tools.

Hope this was illustrative.