- Now that they’ve downsized the Weekend section, does Brick become that de facto vehicle? No longer the black sheep of the Richmond Media General family, their website was prominently featured on yesterday’s Inrich.com home page.
- Kudos to RVANews for breaking the story of Mayor Wilder’s new website. For a Seventysomething, the guy is sure showing his internet savviness (so much so, the haters are lining up all jealous). Perhaps, inspired by his protégé Obama, the website is fantastic, employing all the latest media tools (blogging, video, RSS, timely updates, clean aesthetics). I mean, Christ, I think I just saw his site on the rvablogs blogroll (it’s under “blog”…need to change the title tags on that page, Jon, I mean, Doug).Â
- In a previous Media Notes, I snidely said that if Richmond media were the NFL draft, Richmond.com would be sliding down the boards. Well it looks like they just ran a 4.3 40 at the combine. Within just a few couple of weeks, Richmond.com has gotten dramatically better, primarily, driven by new writers:
- James Bacon has just ran with the R’Biz. Over night, it has become the best local business news site out there (even trumping the Times Dispatch). Let’s hope, he can sustain this fast start.
- Wow, did the Pollyanna dining section just put out a balanced review of LuLu’s? “Service was perfunctory, also reminiscent of my New York days”…that almost sounds like a criticism! Again, credit this to a new reviewer Ginger Warder.Â
-  Richmond.com was the first mainstream media to finally pickup the “Richmond as the #1 blogging city” story (albeit, a month late. see A Hotbed of Citizen Journalism). Here’s what I said back in April: “The BIGGER “conspiracy†question I have is why hasn’t the mainstream press covered the Project for Excellence in Journalism study? When is Richmond ever #1 for anything? The PEJ is as legitimate and national as it gets (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and The Pew Research Center!?!). Something like this story should have warranted at the very least a mention (if not a full blown “above the fold†story). As far as I can tell, zero local coverage. What gives? Is it because the study failed to mention Barticles?“ My addendum for today: So the Times Dispatch writes a self serving bullshit story about how they won 7 VPA awards for ADVERTISING, and they still won’t cover a national Pew study about Richmond?
- Kudos to Richmond.com, for immediately fixing a fatal flaw in the article, not linking to the blogs mentioned in the story.
- What does all this improvement get you? Traffic from here, here, here, here, here, but most importantly here (all those other links bring your stories to the top). Traffic = Advertising $.
May 9, 2008
Media Notes: Wilder 2.0, Richmond.com Rising, Brick Weekly Finally Part of InRich
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Brick was never the black sheep at MG. They were just ignored for being so god-awful.
Comment by Rob at RTD — May 9, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
Jon Baliles from River City Rapids is behind the Mayor’s sudden new website. Plus a tech-saavy guy from the Department of Public Works who worked for the City just a few months and then took a job with an Internet site builder.
Comment by Pauline — May 9, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
Pauline,
Isn’t that a good thing as a taxpayer though? City hall employees acting more like startup, entrepreneurs rather than the traditional, stereotype bureacrat…
Comment by the804.com — May 10, 2008 @ 5:23 am
The only things worth reading in Brick are Chris Bopst\’s weekly column and a few of the cartoons. If I have to read one more \” Team Brick goes to ________(insert boring activity nobody cares about)….well, I\’m not sure what I\’ll do, but it\’ll be ugly! Hey, team brick, heres one for you\” Team Brick goes and actually learns how to write something that people would want to read\”.
Shouldn\’t have fired Humes.
Comment by Branch — May 10, 2008 @ 8:28 am
I agree! I don’t understand that Team Brick stuff … is Brick supposed to be an indie publication about Richmond events or a handful of people’s myspace page? I don’t care that Team Brick got their chest waxed (or whatever they’ve done lately, I’ve offically stopped reading).
Comment by bob — May 15, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
It just sounded like you were giving Wilder credit for the Website when he doesn’t have a clue about those things.
Team Brick is indeed a mystery. I guess it saves money on writers to have the graphic design and advertising sales staff actually write the paper. Unfortunately, this may be the wave of the future.
Comment by Pauline — May 19, 2008 @ 8:13 am