With the new year comes a whole new list of responsibilities for me at RTV6.

For the past three years I’ve worked at WRTV as Promotion Editor, producing and editing topical news promotion and special programming, while working to develop new online ventures.

As of January 1, 2009, I have been officially promoted to Manager of Digital Media. Not sure what that means? You’re not alone. I’m still figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing.

Here is what was sent out in the all-staff e-mail:

In addition to daily news and station marketing, he will work to develop and implement new e-business opportunities, particularly implementing new sales ventures on the web and in other media.

Basically my focus will shift away from cranking out topical promotion. I’ll handle some online promotion and viewer relations (to steal a title from a blog I’ll link to in a minute, “chief conversation officer”), research and development of new products for the Web, as well as managing those brands.

A big portion of the new job will be keeping up with blogs, Twitter and other social media, reading journals, and taking a lot of tutorials and courses. I won’t have anything to do with content on TheIndyChannel.com, but I will be working to market the site effectively.

As I’ve met more and more people on Twitter, I’ve started following more and more people who work at TV stations and those station’s websites. I stumbled upon a great article about how TV stations are “still in the dark ages” (oddly enough, that saying is used in both blogs to which I’m about to link).

I personally have a huge problem with a lack of engagement from companies on social media platforms. Some department head has seen a story ab0ut how Comcast is using Twitter and they think, “hey, we need to be doing that, too.” But they don’t follow through. They put up a Twitter account that only posts their RSS feed, or just publishes their sales every day. They don’t engage the audience. And that’s pointless and useless.

Here’s what Sheryl had to say about the issue on her blog:

All these news people, brands, etc pretending to engage with ‘us’ in social media like [T]witter, might as well not bother rather than throw up a site that isn’t engaging, or putting up a dummy account on twitter where no engagement happens at all.

Another issue TV stations need to deal with is new technology, especially the kinds spreading like wildfire within a certain niche. Too often, we start catching up too late in the game. This can be attributed to cost or lack of knowledge, but it is an issue. As iPhones and other smartphones become more commonplace, TV stations need to re-evaluate the presentation they provide.

On Random Gemini’s blog, she talks about iPhone compatibility with TV station websites:

[T]hen you get to watch your iPhone load the full bore web version of the news site, complete with video links that do not work and interactive screens that will not load because guess what folks? The iPhone doesn’t support [F]lash. In fact, these sites are so heavily encumbered with [F]lash that browsing them from an iPhone is not easily accomplished and I got so frustrated with one of the sites that I put my iPhone down and went to my laptop.

I completely agree with her frustration. For some stations, they’re stuck with what they have. This is thanks to big companies controlling styling for numerous sites; some don’t see the potential of having to develop different layouts for different devices.

Hopefully I can start addressing issues like these to improve the audience’s perception of 6 News and RTV6′s products.

Oh, and I hope to be able to improve our use of proper terminology. Since one time we had a story talking about “M3P players.” No joke.

The iPhone is an addictive, evil device

For the holidays this year, @mmagnolia22 and I decided we would buy each other iPhone 3Gs.

Don’t worry, it’s only the 8GB model, nothing too crazy.

She picked the phones up yesterday afternoon, and we’ve spent 16 of the last 24 hours playing with our new tech-toys (the other 8 hours were spent sleeping).

I’ve found I love the phone even more than I thought I would, and I have trouble putting it down. In fact, I yearn to hold the phone when I’m in the shower. My dreams are filled with thoughts of the Apps Store. I have a problem. We have a problem.

So far, these are my favorite apps:

• Tweetie (for Twitter)
• RTM (for Remember the Milk Pro accounts)
• WordPress (for, well, WordPress)
• Facebook (again, self-explanatory)
• Urbanspoon (finding and rating food)
• Pandora (music)
• Last.fm (music)
• ICanHazCheezBurger (all the LOLcatz, Kitchen Pundit and FailBlog one person can handle)

Transit center talks

Over the weekend, I stumbled on to this article about IndyGo searching for a new transit center location.

What really mattered in the story was the potential locations for the center. Now this “center” may sound like a fancy idea, but it’s really just a bus station. Even Muncie had a bus station downtown for MITS (Muncie Indiana Transit System). I still find it hard to believe that IndyGo just uses Indianapolis sidewalks downtown as bus stations. It crowds the streets and make driving downtown trickier during the mornings and evenings.

But I might be willing to continue putting up with downtown bus congestion after the potential locations were announced:

Both Union Station and the Market Square Arena property are owned by the city. Union Station could make sense because it already receives Amtrak and Greyhound traffic. The MSA site could be a tougher sell since a bus depot could discourage residential or retail development.

Another possibility for the hub is on parking lots on IUPUI’s campus.

MSA seems like a good choice, but I understand the desire to keep that a prime area for residential and retail developments. Union Station appears to be a good choice, until you look at the traffic situation on the near-southside. It’s already difficult to get around on South Street in the evening, adding all the bus traffic to that mess will just cause more problems.

The IUPUI idea is intriguing, but keep in mind the parking lots over there get pretty full during the day. What about all those students? Will they want to put up with the buses crowding traffic? If it’s going to be a “transit center,” isn’t it a little too far from the center?

Just a thought.

IndyGo seeks new location for transit center – IBJ.

… he’s too busy waiting to see The Tale of Last Chance Valkyrie, Frost/Marley & The Spirit of Benjamin Button Stories.