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.

They need to check their map

Last time I looked, Google Maps has that distance as 147 miles. But 10 miles is a decent estimate, I guess.

[Editor's note: This post updated 4 October]

I love Firefox.

But I don’t like having to run GTalk in the background to have mailto: links open in GMail or my Hosted GMail. So, what do you do to change how mailto: links function?

It’s actually quite simple.

Open Firefox.

In the address bar type one of the following strings of code. It will vary depending on if you are using a Google Hosted account or a regular GMail account.
GMail:

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler
("mailto","https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail")

Hosted GMail:

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler
("mailto","https://mail.google.com/a/exampleurl.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")

You will be asked if you want to add GMail as a handler for mailto: links. Go ahead.

If you are not asked for any confirmation, go back to the address bar and type:

about:config

Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”

In the filter bar type:

network.protocol-handler.external.mailto

Double-click on the entry listed under “Preference Name,” this will change the entry to “true” and appear bold.

Then verify the setup worked by going to Tools > Options.

Click “Applications” and in the “Search” box type

mailto

Make sure the drop-down on the right says “Use GMail.”

This has been one of my favorite tweaks for Firefox. And it’s made sharing things much easier, because I don’t have to “Copy link address” to send e-mails to friends.

“Okay, let’s put it on the truck!”

“No, wait. Bring it back! It can’t go out until tomorrow!”

These are the screws that hold my TV together. The TV I haven’t been able to put back together since I moved. Mainly because I’m not smart enough to put the original screws with the TV during a move.

Well, I finished cleaning up this blog. I made some changes to the theme, which may or may not be obvious.

I seem to “redesign” this site every month, or at least that’s what @mmagnolia22 is saying. But I find it’s a nice way for me to relax. Even though I sit at the keyboard for hours on end and will eventually swear loudly and complain about how the Internet doesn’t work the way it should. Sounds odd doesn’t it?

But for some reason it relaxes me. Sports and expensive toys are good hobbies for some people, I guess. I never really got in to cars, and if it doesn’t have anything to do with the Hoosier basketball team I don’t really care. We don’t own a house, so I don’t need to paint or replace furnace filters. So, I do this when I’m bored or inspired.

Anywho, I started revamping earlier this week, then finished up today. I actually added content to some of the pages, but that’s not the story I’m actually here to tell.

It’s valid!

I have validation now. Not for this site (there are still at least 17 warnings about my CSS, but my XHTML is fine). The station blogs are both valid XHTML and valid CSS. You may not think that’s a big deal, or care at all, but I’m proud of that fact. Especially considering I wasn’t out to have valid code when I redesigned the themes a month ago.

So, that’s what I did with my Saturday, validated code. Oh, and @mmagnolia22 and I looked at a new place a few blocks up the street. Do you have a house-warming gift? That doesn’t involve fire?

Time for the Death Cab for Cutie concert, I should probably finish doing the dishes before I leave.

PS: Look for some nice After Effects work to be posted in the next few days.

I know that it may sound confusing: just because it’s the Internet and you want to be lazy, that doesn’t mean you should submit comments like this to the station blogs: (I will make fun of you)

i have heard that marissa is pregnant is she if so i think she can really move her body i such asexy way..

Wow. Really?

The only punctuation is a failed attempt at an ellipses, and apparently the “Shift” key was broken and the spacebar occasionally didn’t work.

I think I went to school with someone who wrote like that (granted I was in 2nd grade for the 4th time). I’m joking. Or am I? No, I am. Or not. This joke works much better when you see my face.

I spent 4 days last week building a website. Not just any website, though. It’s a website that explains the future.

What am I talking about? Digital television.

It’s not just the “next thing on the horizon,” but the next thing coming to your living room by law.

As part of the conversion the broadcast stations in Indianapolis (WFYI, WRTV, WISH [WNDY], WTHR, WXIN [WTTV]) have joined forces with the Indiana Broadcasters Association to help inform the public of this change. WTHR has been doing a lot on their own to promote the change. I’ve been very impressed with their promos so far, they’re very well done and very informative (except for one that looks like it was shot 16×9 but has been squeezed to 4×3).

As part of the process to educate viewers WRTV produced a Public Service Announcement that’s being run on all broadcast stations in town, promoting indianaDTVanswers.com (link)

Now for most of us, the conversion to DTV won’t change anything. If you get your television from cable, satellite or another provider they’re going to take care of the downconversion from digital to analog. But if you watch stations over-the-air (using rabbit ears) you’ll need a converter box to turn those ones and zeros into a signal your television can decode.

You don’t really care about any of that, though, do you? Because last time I checked, most people in the industry don’t even understand what’s going on.

Well, the whole point of this post was to be self-serving, so to that end I present the self-serving part of this post.

IndianaDTVanswers.com was created by me and one of WRTV’s graphic designers.

Huzah! There. That’s the end.

RTV6 has made a surprising commitment to blogging. Well, maybe not surprising, but unexpected. It all started when the General Manager started blogging at rtv6gm.com (link). Pretty soon, requests for blogs started pouring in. But the question was, how do we manage many blogs in a cheap, yet effective, way?

The solution was in-house. Use free software, a reliable, but competitively priced host, and tada! Now we’re up to 8 blogs and developing at least 2 more. Now, don’t think they’re all outrageously successful. StormTeam 6 Blog (link) has a tried and true following, and many office workers have started reading Grace Trahan’s thoughts on the Good Morning Indiana Blog (link). But the most successful blog (apart from TODDandTRISHA.com [link]) has to be the Capitol Watchblog (link). People interested in politics can never get enough of other people’s opinions, and the Capitol Watchblog pretty much proves that.

In case you weren’t aware, we moderate all of the comments to our blogs. Well, not “we” but “me.” Twice a day, everyday, I sift through spam to read all of our comments. What gets through depends on the blog. The Capitol Watchblog gets a lot of angry voters, but as long as their comments aren’t racist or hate speech they get through (though I do censor foul language [even though I choose to use it all the time]). TODDandTRISHA.com had a lot stricter moderation when we started, since it was a promotional tool, we felt it necessary to control the spin, but if someone did submit negative feedback, I shared it with management.

I’ve definitely seen some hilarious comments, but currently there’s a person commenting on EVERY Capitol Watchblog post. She’s posting basically the same thing, with some variations, but this one cracked me up:

Female first Hillary Clinton is for jobs for wind energy!Hillary Clinton has got the background and she knows what this country needs is reform!!!U.S. Sen. Barack Obama he wants more illegal alliens here come take our jobs in the U.S.!!! Our country is hurting enough unemployment is high we need our jobs ourselves us U.S. citizens!!!!I SAY FEMALE FIRST Hillary Clinton MAY BE THE FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT SHE’S GOT WHAT IT TAKES FOR THIS COUNTRY KEEP OUR JOBS FOR US THE U.S. CITIZENS THE ILLEGAL ALLIENS IS STEELING OUR JOBS RIGHT UNDER OUR FEET!!! Hillary Clinton bring our troops home from IRAQ!!!

Let’s focus on one key thing:

SHE’S GOT WHAT IT TAKES FOR THIS COUNTRY KEEP OUR JOBS FOR US THE U.S. CITIZENS THE ILLEGAL ALLIENS IS STEELING OUR JOBS

Wait, WTF?! Maybe the “illegal alliens” wouldn’t be “steeling” our jobs if you could learn how the “Caps Lock” button works. Oh, and spelling, too. Learn to spell.

It’s no wonder “illegal alliens” took your job.

I’ll let a few misspellings slide (since there isn’t a spell checker built into our commenting system), but this is just moronic. Did you not graduate from middle school? Are you from southern Indiana? What is it? Just tell us so we can help you!