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The Honolulu Advertiser, like other Gannett newspapers, has spent a considerable amount of time and effort to set up a hyperlocal blog network at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com. The Advertiser’s web site is littered with small graphical ads that promote individual blogs with the same cookie-cutter approach: the blog’s name, along with the author’s name and picture, with an uninspired tagline such as “A blog by…” or “Blog with…”

Advertiser Editor Mark Platte wrote a progress report in this Honolulu Advertiser op-ed article called Blogs a hit, and we’d love more. One section of this article is interesting:

I’m always on the lookout for new blogs, specifically in areas that aren’t already covered, and I am always asking staffers and those outside the staff if they are interested in blogging. Some have started blogs and decided the time commitment is more than they bargained for, so they drop out. But blogging is about experimenting, and if a blog doesn’t work, there’s no problem replacing it with another authored by someone with a fresh perspective.

This Poinography article from the same day, 15 June 2008, called Editor wants more hits and ad revenue, er, bloggers examined the same section with a cynical view.It’s true that print and broacast advertising revenues have been on the decline for years, as advertisers make more online media buys. The title of this TechCrunch article is a good starting point: Top 100 Advertisers Shifted $1 Billion To the Web Last Year At The Expense Of TV And Newspapers.

As Advertising Age notes, the economy has something to do with this trend: Top 100’s Ad-Spend Growth Grinds to Halt.

The Advertiser has been involved in a long-running labor dispute with its writing staff. The blog network is one way to recruit new, non-union writers who could provide online content during a strike or walkout.

Many of the Advertiser’s bloggers are already union journalists for the newspaper, but the majority of the neighborhood bloggers are new recruits to the Advertiser.

Authority and timeliness

A newspaper’s blogs should be as authoritative and reliable as the print and online editions. I enjoy reading the New York Times’ blogs, especially Bits and The Lede. The blogs provide Some of the Times’ blog articles are a draft or preview of a longer article that appears a few hours later in the print and online editions of the newspaper itself.

A few of the Advertiser’s 36 bloggers need assistance in learning how to blog. Kim Fassler, in an article called Friday Tidbits in her Quarterlife Cafe blog, mentioned that she has problems finding topics for her blog posts:

I suppose Quarterlife Cafe would probably fall into the category of “meaningless fluff” designed to entice the twenty-something crowd into reading the newspaper. But, hey, if I can get just one more apathetic twenty-something to read just one more article and learn just one more important aspect of some Hawaii issue, then I’ll write all the meaningless fluff I can muster.

That post had five subheadings in it, with Kim’s comments on Iran, teenage pregnancy, and cloning. I would have split that single post into 4 articles posted throughout the day.

Some of the comments on Kim’s story were excellent. One person noted that the Advertiser’s blog software seems slow, for example. Their pages do resolve at a lazy pace, but that’s some a good server-side cache could fix.

Tomorrow I’ll post an announcement about a new direction for my blog.

It’s time for me to end the rampant speculation by the media and announce that I will not join Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) as his nominee for vice president this year. While I respect Senator Obama and support his candidacy, there are other candidates who would bring much more value to the Democratic ticket.

Bill Richardson would provide excellent cabinet-level experience in foreign policy and energy, while representing the west and Hispanic interests. He also has a good relationship with Senator Obama, and a long relationship with the Clintons.

Kathleen Sebelius has had a good run as governor of Kansas, and delivered the democratic response to this year’s State of the Union address. That’s an indicator that she is being considered for a national role in this year’s elections.

Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has expressed interest in the nomination. A joint ticket might deal a serious blow to Senator McCain’s ambitions, even if McCain picks Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) as his VP nominee. Chris Cilliza has some good thoughts on this on his Washington Post blog article, Hagel for (Democratic) Veep?

Frankly, the GOP should be more concerned about Bob Barr’s campaign as the Libertarian Party preidential nominee. Barr has little chance of winning the presidential race, but he could take votes away from the GOP ticket, as this AP article surmises.

See Obama Vice President Picks in the Huffington Post, Time to Talk About Obama’s Veep Choice by Ron Rosenbaum,

Public domain image of Kathleen Sebelius was taken by FEMA and appears courtesy of Wikipedia.

Malia Zimmerman and her fellow travelers Cliff Slater and Charley’s Taxi president Dale Evans are busy promoting the construction of more roads and elevated HOV lanes on their remarkably ugly web sites, as well as the abysmally designed honolulutraffic.com. The Hawaii Reporter has been emailing single image messages for an anti-rail group and a sister web site, ZeroShibai.com.

‘Let the people decide’ not to receive spam

But there’s no unsubscribe or opt-out link in email messages or on their web sites. In 2008, that’s not just ignorant - it may be illegal. So much for respecting the privacy of Internet users. Malia seems more concerned about her First Amendment protection from civil lawsuits than respecting user privacy.

Another petition site, Let Honolulu Vote, has similar problems with design and privacy.

Perhaps StopRailNow could spend some of the money they are spending on full-page advertisements in the Honolulu Advertiser, Star-Bulletin and MidWeek on an email management service like SafeSubscribe.

I did send an unsubscribe request to info [at] stoprailnow [dot] com on 9 May 2008. It’s a very simple message that folows the standard pattern for unsubscribing:

I haven’t received a message from them since. But I didn’t receive any acknowledgment of my request, either. I remember the days when the Hawaii Reporter’s web server was kept in a bedroom.

Laws, technology and expectations have changed since then.

Related posts and pages on billso.com

• Honolulu mass transit
• 8 June 2008: Why Honolulu needs rail
• 20 April 2008: Honolulu newspapers to City Council: Enough already!
• 17 April 2008: Back on track
• 15 April 2008: Council members discuss mass transit research
• 2 April 2008: Still on track?
• 20 March 2008: Like a fifth wheel
• 6 February 2008: Hawaii has highest car ownership costs in the USA
• 19 June 2007: City council, planners still arguing over mass transit routes, modes

After Monday’s iPhone 3G announcement, the blogosphere is full of opinions. Engadget has a good overview of the new iPhone here. Andrew Dobrow checked the AT&T coverage map for the New York City area and claimed that the 3G coverage was poor. It looks fine to me, as long as you don’t live in central New Jersey. Our 3G coverage on Oahu looks excellent by comparison. 

Related posts on billso.com

• iPhone
• 9 June 2008: iPhone 3G coming on July 11
• 7 June 2008: The impossible solar iPhone
• 29 April 2008: New iPhone will be subsidized, faster and thinner
• 28 April 2008: Should Apple sell hardware on two-year contracts?

It’s a state holiday here in Hawaii.

This image courtesy of billso through a Creative Commons license.