A brief outage
UnionLeader.com will be out of service for 10 minutes or so this evening. We’re installing some patches to our servers’ software. Our apologies for any inconvenience.
Streaming Video/Podcasts
We are looking to provide longer video Webcasts. We’d like to be able to present videos of 10 to 15 minutes duration.
As for a broadcast longer than this duration, we’d do each story as a snippet, so instead of a reader having to wait for a large download, they get something more reasonable about just the story they’re interested in. We do a set of these on our top stories to create a Web cast and present the links on a page in a way that visually ties the set together as a cohesive presentation.
For long interviews, for example, we’d break the video into snippets of lesser length on seperate subjects within the interview.
New art library attributes
Each art record should have a field where we might apply a url that the art and cutline would be linked to.
This field should work like the related links system within an article, where we can search to link to content within the site, or add a url directly. There should be a target attribute.
The search would look at both the articles db and the art library.
This will allow us to more easily integrate video and Pictopia throughout the site because we’ll be able to post a teaser graphic with text that links to the video or Pictopia gallery.
Customer Care Center
We’ll be building a system for handling all commerce related to unionleader.com and its associate publications.
A secure credit card store will be the first part of an extensible “Customer Care Center” that puts all commerce in the site under one roof. Eventually, a shopping cart within this system would work across the multiple systems we’re trying to integrate. These systems are:
- The company store to purchase Union Leader branded products.
- Circulation’s “PBS IServices”, where readers will be able to purchase a variety of subscriptions.
- Classified ads for the print edition via Adwebster.
Ideally, a person might put a Union Leader mug, a 1-year subscription, and a classified ad for print into their shopping cart and check out all at once.
Can I get a print of that?
UnionLeader.com today is pleased to introduce its new photo galleries, a major improvement to the site that will showcase the best work of our photographers — and allow you to purchase the photos that matter to you.
Thanks to the work of UnionLeader.com staffer Ben McLeod, we now are using software from Pictopia, a company that has partnered with many of America’s largest newspapers for photo galleries.
We are introducing the service with a gallery of images from last week’s flooding. In the near future, watch for new galleries dedicated to sports, high school ceremonies, hard news and delightful features from across the state.
To learn more about a picture, or to purchase a print, a framed photo, or even a custom-printed coffee mug, go to a gallery and click on any image that interests you. A new window will open, bringing you more caption details, plus information on how to buy a keepsake version.
– Charlie Perkins
What happened to the list?
UnionLeader.com has just removed the state Department of Transportation’s official list of flooded or closed roads from its site. While that town-by-town survey was very helpful at the height of the flood, readers have told us that it is now out of date; many roads listed as shut down have long been re-opened.
What went wrong? I’d guess that many overworked local road agents are far too busy right now to update the state on what local streets are again passable. And the state certainly can’t spare anyone to check on all of the 500-plus listed streets.
– Charles Perkins
Enjoy the game!
Let’s hope for a warm, sunny evening on Friday, May 26. That’s when Alan Sypek of Londonderry will be at Fenway Park. The former town fire chief is the winner of UnionLeader.com’s informal contest for the best photos of this week’s flooding.
As you know by now, this site’s readers sent in scores of first-rate photos. But he documented Sunday’s fast-water rescue of a young boy in a fashion that impressed veteran journalists here and at other papers. Enjoy the game, Mr. Sypek. You deserve an evening of fun — with no rain.
– Charlie Perkins
Covering the flood — with our readers
This is the biggest statewide news story since our redesign of UnionLeader.com last summer. Our traffic today is at its highest level ever. It looks as though we surpassed our one-day record by early afternoon.
If you are a newcomer — welcome. Add us to your favorites or bookmarks. There’s lots of top-quality reporting and photography on this site every day, not just when Mother Nature decides to show us something new. We hope you come back often.
The Union Leader has always taken pride in its close relationship with its readers. But UnionLeader.com has to take it to another level. We rely on your contributions to make our photo galleries shine. Our staff photographers can’t be everywhere at once, but our readers are. We’ll keep posting good pictures of this memorable event as long as you keep sending them. Thanks.
– Charlie Perkins
PDA homepage
UNIONLEADER.COM is gearing up to support browsing from mobile devices. While this feature is not ready to launch, we do want to make the Beta available for readers to consider. It’s an opportunity for you to help shape the final product.
The url is http://dev.unionleader.com/pda.aspx.
Please send any comments or suggestions to cperreault@unionleader.com.
News Alerts, RSS . . . and more
We have almost a thousand subscribers already for our new email alerts: Morning Headlines, News Alerts and Sports Headlines. (If you’re not getting these yet, click here right now!)
Jim Rougier, a Manchester reader, is the winner of our Charter Subscriber contest. He gets four premium box seats to Tuesday’s Fisher Cats game.
UnionLeader.com promises not to barrage its News Alert subscribers with bulletins. In the first week, we’ve sent out just two. One was on the stunning details in the Sheila LaBarre affidavit, the other on the historic sale of the Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods and nearby properties. We’ll rarely send bulletins on national or world stories; New Hampshire is our focus.
The site, of course, is updated whenever news breaks throughout the day. It makes sense to check it every few hours. One way to do that is via an RSS feed. If you’re not familiar with that increasingly popular way to check our headlines,
click here.
What’s next? Well, do you have a mobile phone that can access the Web? UnionLeader.com can be read that way, but it’s not quick and simple. So we are working on a new phone-friendly version of our home page for mobile access. The early testing is going well. It’s too early to say when we’ll begin some quiet beta testing of the new service — but Site FAQtory readers will be invited to help out.
– Charlie Perkins