Getting a taste of Biz Bytes
Business reporter Dick Barron has started an e-mail newsletter that comes out at 4:30 p.m. weekdays and wraps up the day's business news. Called Biz Bytes, it includes breaking news about jobs, economic development, corporate moves and markets. It also features local executive achievements and people news.
Dick told me: "The idea came when I was thinking about ways to expand business news into the online platform with the basic resources we have. I know that we have national and local competitors that do this kind of thing, but nobody has the combination of deep local coverage plus full-scale national and international business news and market charts. We have all this stuff easily available in one form or another. All I had to do was aggregate the information and provide a design and some commentary that would integrate it.
"My other motivation was that we can offer far more content than people see in the print publication because space and emphasis just don't allow us to give it a showcase. Our major stories always get good play on the front page. But this would be another venue for the smaller achievements that people have, plus a spot for me and my colleagues to do a little commentary about stories of the day."
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Comments (2)
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I've always liked Dick. But seriously folks, I have. He took a great interest in Greensboro101 when it launched and I remember being struck the way he seemed to be asking all the right questions -- getting the best explanation from someone who wasn't always very articulate.
I'm sure his newsletter will be a good read, but wouldn't it just be one more baby step to publish it as a blog? I'd love to see it on We101.com.
Posted on August 21, 2008 8:26 PM
I haven't seen this actual product yet.
But, I would hope that this email newsletter actually tries to drive traffic back to your core website.
In other words, the easiest thing to do would be to post all the updates in the newsletter. (Copy, paste, send.) A more difficult execution would be to post short summaries with links to the full stories (that should already be ON the main website -- which you are, in theory, updating all day).
Otherwise, what, really is the point? I'm not trying to be flippant, but email newsletters need to be couched as traffic-drivers.
Maybe this is how you are doing it -- and, if so, great. Also, is the advertising department aware of this effort and are they trying to sell sponors for it?
By the way, I was underwhelmed with the "sign up" page.
The News & Record is not a small company. Could the sign up page be a bit more.... customized? Or explain a bit more about the product -- and at least look like the rest of the site?
It doesn't exactly make me 'want' to sign up...
Constant Contact is a good vendor. I would think they could let you pay a small fee to customize the page.
Here is a good example of a customized page that submits sign up data to a third party while keeping a customized look.
http://www.charleston.net/presspass/
it submits data to
http://i.pr00.net/subscribe
Could the N&R not afford something like this? As someone on your blogs loves to say "I'm just saying"
Posted on August 28, 2008 12:56 AM