Reflections on Hardly Strictly Young

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Lauren Rabaino

Last week I learned that David Cohn knows how to tell a joke, bust a move and host an awesome conference.

In all seriousness, the Hardly Strictly Young conference was a whirlwind of new people, old friends, big questions, bright ideas and lots of food. About 30 of us got together at the Reynold’s Journalism Institute in now tornado-stricken Missouri for a small ~~conference~~ gathering designed to compile alternate implementations for the Knight Commission’s report on informing communities.

We sat around for a full day in small, rotating brainstorming groups to tear the Knight Commission’s report to pieces and find ways to implement the very vague concepts recommended. Notably, the four topics we discussed:

Journalism or media education at various levels
How we can increase the sources of news providers
Expand local media initiatives to reflect the “full reality” of the communities they represent
Ensure that every local community has at least one high-quality online hub

Continue reading →

Should you protect your status updates on Twitter?

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Lauren Rabaino

Twitter is about the conversation. It’s about connections. It’s about transparency.

So a question for you: In any other public conversation, would you make your peers and professionals sign a request form before you let them hear what you have to say?

Hopefully you’re not saying anything on Twitter that will get you in trouble. By now you should be in the habit of knowing that if it’s on the Web, it can get out– private or not.

Protecting your updates goes against everything Twitter is all about.

Conversation
One of the most valuable aspects of Twitter is being hyper-connected to a huge group of people all the time. There is so much to be learned from partaking in discussions with students, educators and professionals in your industry, but if you protect your updates, the conversation is one-way. It implies “I want to see what you say, but you have to be worthy of seeing what I have to say.”

In the Twitterverse, we’re all equals — whether you’re Ashton Kutcher, Lance Armstrong or just some dude from a small town. Protecting your updates impedes that equality and creates an almost hierarchical feel to Twitter.

Connections
As what I consistently refer to as the most powerful text-based medium on the Web, Twitter gives people who otherwise would never know each other the chance to develop lasting relationships– on a both personal and professional level. All Twitterers have their own niche, whether it be industry-related or hobby-specific or even geographically bound. Twitter unites people.

If you’re on Twitter to make connections, the likelihood of someone following you back is low if your updates are blocked.

People follow you based on your recent tweets, the way you tweet, the links you post, the insight you share and your contributions to the worldwide conversation. You’re depriving potential followers all of those things when you force them to follow you before they know what you’re all about. Is that fair?

Transparency
For student journalists, it’s an especially risky business to have private tweets. With the rise of social media, our industry is increasingly about putting a person behind the words. It’s about transparency.

Reporters who protect their updates make it seem as though they have something to hide. Do you have something to hide? Are you going to choose who gets to see what you tweet and who doesn’t? If you reject someone, you’re excluding them from your conversation and trashing your personal identity and transparency.

Be smart
I know many people protect their updates for privacy and safety. But there are better ways to attain both of those things. Twitter is not a place for privacy. Twitter is wide open for everyone. If you’re worried someone will stalk you if they know you’re at the market or know more about you than they ought to, then maybe you should rethink the way you Twitter.

Is the social network really a way to broadcast where you are and what you’re doing at all times? No. It’s a tool to build your identity and expand your mind. Be a smart Twitterer. And if someone truly does creep you out, the “block” option is there for a reason.

Tracking history through CNN alerts

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Lauren Rabaino

In my history classes growing up, teachers framed newspaper clips and hung them from the walls to document historic elections. I always knew I’d experience at least one truly historic election in my lifetime, and as a child, I always pictured myself framing the newspaper remnants beneath shiny glass on the wall.

Well, that election is here, and instead, all I have to show for it is a huge series of CNN alerts I’ve saved over the months:

I’ve lived through one of the most revolutionary elections in history, marked by the use of technology and resulting in the first black president of the United States. But 50 years from now, will I have anything physical to show for it? Only memories.

Hudson River crash = Citizen journalism at its best

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Lauren Rabaino

Time and time again, student journalists in my college newsroom ask where the value is in Twitter.

“It’s just another social thing,” one guy told me just yesterday.

Then something like this happens and changes everything:

The photo was posted to TwitPic via Janis Krums @jkrums, a guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Along with his photo (in fewer than 140 characters) Janis tweeted: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

And as our mobile phone picture-taking-quaility continues to improve, so will the value in on-the-go journalism. Janis’ photo, taken from an iPhone, is far better in quailty than the frame grabs taken from local news stations. His photo was also the first to appear on the web — and, as usual, I found out about the crash on Twitter before CNN ever sent out my news alert.

There’s a lot of talk these days about whether Twitter, blogging and microblogging are the future of journalism. I’m not sure if I’m ready to make that claim, but times like these validate that it’s a hell of a supplement.

The changing face of e-mail interviews

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Lauren Rabaino

I’ve always learned that e-mail interviews are an absolute last resort. The criteria: the interviewee has to be on the other side of the world, on a spaceship or in jail.

But as e-mail and other web-based networks (Twitter, Facebook) become such a huge part of the communicative landscape, e-mail interviews don’t have the same “unprofessional” vibe they used to.

I’m not suggesting that an e-mail interview should entirely replace a phone or face-to-face interview, but it’s a great supplement.

Freelance journalist Kim Lisagor said in a recent conversation that she was shocked when reporters e-mailed her regarding her book, Disappearing Desinations. As a traditionally-trained journalist, she always saw e-mails as a last resort too.

But she made an interesting observation:

“The only articles that were accurate were the e-mail interviews,” Lisagor said.

The great thing about e-mail interviews is that you can pull quotes directly from the e-mail, verbaitim.

Ways to effectively use e-mail interviews:

As an introduction: If you have some time to work an a story, shoot your primary sources a quick e-mail. Let them get the gist of your story. Tell them to be expecting a call from you. I’ve found that this makes my sources a lot more comfortable, and that means a better interview. You can do this introduction through Twitter or Facebook too. Example: “Hello Mr. Doe, I’m a student reporter at the College Daily and I’m just giving you the heads up that I’ll be calling you soon to talk about an article I’m writing. I’m interested in investigating faculty salaries and I know you’ve been vocal about the topic in the past. Looking forward to talking to you.

To get the basics. Names, places, times, etc. If you have this in an e-mail, you can always resort back to it, directly from the source.
As a fact-checker: Are you unsure about a few statistics or a sequence of events? Rather than finding the time to meet in person again or facing the difficulty of trying to sort out details over the phone, e-mail can be the best way to see the facts straight-forward.Example: Hello, Ms. Doe. I am the College Daily student you spoke with earlier. I want my story to be accurate, and I was hoping you can confirm a few facts:
- CSU employees will maintain regular pay until the budget is passed
- The support budget consists of federal money remaining from the 2007-08 school year
- When that money runs dry the CSU will pay employees from student fees Thanks in advance for the clarification!
  -Student journalist

When you shouldn’t use e-mail interviews:

Really hard news. If there is a scandal with the mayor, it’s likely that an e-mail response would be written by a PR person. To get to the root of it and fish through the BS, phone and in-person will produce the best results.
Really fluffy features. If you want to capture the sparkle in someone’s eye or tone in someone’s voice, e-mail just won’t do the trick. That doesn’t mean cut it out all together. You can still use the e-mail to do an introduction to your subject, then after the interview, send an e-mail to get clarifications you need.

Of course, all e-mail interviews can and should be supplemented with phone and in-person interviews, but the negativity that once surrounded the form of communication should be thrown out the window. If urgent news needs to get out without the fluff of “spontaneous reaction to a follow-up question,” e-mail is certainly acceptable.

To avoid getting yourself in trouble, Jonathan Dube has a few good tips on Poynter:

E-mail may last forever. Once sent, it can be forwarded to strangers. So keep it professional at all times.

Identify yourself as a reporter.

Apply the same critical thinking and fact-checking skills that you would to any other information source.

Verify your sources and their online identities. Remember, e-mail addresses can be faked.

In economic struggles, newsrooms should turn to the web

Posted on November 30, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

It’s old news: the Internet makes life easier.

Yet, still, I’m always astonished to find that some professionals still don’t consider it a serious, practical, and usually ideal solution to budget cut problems.

Let me explain…

As a member of my journalism department’s College Based Fees Committee, I see the effects of this “economic downturn.”* *(Because our committee is largely transparent, I have no qualms about openly discussing our budget issues.)

Our broadcast concentration (CPTV ) hasn’t aired once this year because of equipment problems. First, their tape decks were busted, now they need a $20,000 switcher. Of the eight live shows that were supposed to broadcast this fall quarter, none have aired. That’s right, zero of eight.

Equipment defects and financial dilemmas aside, this is inexcusable.

The entire purpose of college is to get enough education and experience to land a job out of college. Even if they can’t broadcast to the dorms every week over the TV, they should still broadcast online.

Some traditional members of the industry would see the online market as a last resort or a less-professional means of learning, but I think it’s the ideal solution.

With the click of a mouse, free services like Mogulus can potentially do what the $20,000 switcher would accomplish.

It’s FREE
Limitless number of input devices (Web cams, camcorders connected through firewire, pre-recorded video, you-tube clips, you name it!)
Can switch between input devices with transitions
Ability to have titles and lower thirds
Can connect their camcorders with firewire (i.e. don’t have to use poor-quality web cams)
Can see how many viewers are watching you at any given moment, track statistics
Video player is embeddable on social networks, blogs and web pages
Can enable a live chat feature for viewers to interact
Not limited to an audience of on-campus dorm rooms (You can expand to faculty, parents, alumni and other interested viewers all over the world)

By building up an online viewership (with trackable statistics), the department would have more of an argument when trying to pursue industry connections for donations. Then, they could use their online stats to raise the money for their $20,000 switcher (but hopefully by then they would realize they don’t need it).

Why Gmail themes don't work for me

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

I’m not one to criticize Google for anything. I love what they do and any innovation is accepted with arms wide open.

But Gmail themes just aren’t hitting the spot.

We live in an increasingly visual-based society. That’s why the concept of themes make sense for an e-mail account. Our e-mail is personal and we like to have our personality reflected through something we own.

But we also like consistency. This is where the importance of branding comes in. Gmail is a brand. We see the Gmail logo and we trust it. It’s associated with security, speed, reliability.

Throw in a Gmail theme that totally ditches the Gmail brand we know and trust, and it just doesn’t feel safe and comfortable anymore

If Gmail can find a way to make fun, clean themes that still connect with all the familiarities that I have grown comfortable with as a user, then they will have succeeded.

Granted, there are a few Gmail themes that do retain the Gmail logo. Still, with all their money and resources, could Google really not find better designers?

Themes that work for people are simple and bold, with a little flair of personality. Maybe Gmail should take a lesson from Twitter designers. Simple, clean, fun and I still get the Twitter logo I know and trust:

Talks with a Yahoo news guru

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

Steve Enders, Cal Poly alumnus and senior product manager at Yahoo! News, gave a keynote lecture Thursday at Cal Poly’s journalism week and shared some interesting perspectives.

A few things Steve emphasized:

“I never thought I’d be where I’m at today. I graduated with an interest in newspapers. I wanted to be a reporter and editor.”

If you’re going to get into journalism, you need to be ready to change. It’s a constant evolution, and if you’re stuck in your ways, you’re not going to last long. Have an open mind. Accept new challenges. Steve’s career path is a perfect example of flexibility:

He graduated in 1997 with a journalism degree
After graudation, he worked at Metro, a newspaper
After Metro, he switched gears to Click, a magazine
Made a huge leap to television, working for Tech TV
Finally made the jump to the web with Yahoo

World’s No. 1 news Web site in terms of unique users to the site each month
Only 10-15 employees on the editorial staff
Processes 13,000 pieces of content every day
About 10 percent is original content, the rest is aggregated

“Now we’re starting to care about, ‘Well, if you’re interested in a story, I probably am too and I’m going to read it.’”

Promote yourself using social networks that most people are already using and familiar with. It will drive traffic to your site, (it’s something I’ve previously blogged about; it’s good to know a professional agrees)

Put your newspaper on Twitter
Start a Facebook page for your publication
Upload your video to YouTube

While Steve as a speaker did very well overall, I was disappointed with the low student turnout. Instead, random guests of the older generation (people who aren’t impacted by the changing industry) showed up and asked questions like “Can you track searches directly back to my name?” or, my favorite: “So, is it like deadline all the time?” Um, duh?

Students should have taken advantage of the opportunity to make an industry connection and get a glimpse into what the industry is like right now (what it’s really like, not what we learn about in class).

On a happier note, I had somewhat of an epiphany during the lecture. Although I’ve recently been pessimistic about journalism as a whole, something Steve said stuck with me:

“What an exciting time to be getting into this industry.”

That statement goes against a lot of sentiments I hear from professionals and peers. A fellow journalism major with a public relations concentration told me yesterday, “I’d be terrified to be in print journalism right now.” It’s the general attitude most students at Cal Poly — and the industry as a whole — have. Sure, we’re going through a tough time, but it’ll come around, and aspiring journalists are going to be the people who fix it.

The industry isn’t dying. It’s changing. And the upcoming generation of journalists gets to redefine news and its delivery.

Plug into now

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

How many people are stuck in an elevator right now? What about square acres of forests being cut or the amount of workers on sick leave at this very moment?

Through a brilliant marketing campaign that caters to Internet users’ low attention span and constant need for information, Sprint compiled feeds and statistics from sites to give you the to-the-moment 411 on Internet and worldly happenings: Plug into now.

And the cool part: There’s an embeddable version for your site, blog or profile page (although it doesn’t do the real site justice. You must go see the real thing at http://now.sprint.com/widget/. Continue reading →

Random flickr things

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

Web engineer John Allspaw from photo-sharing Web site Flickr gave a seminar at Cal Poly Tuesday that was mostly focused on capacity planning. While most of the technical stuff went over my head, a few interesting/funny moments from the evening:

Robocop on a unicorn: Yes, an entire Flickr set. He opened the presentation by showing it to us
“They have more servers than God.” -About Facebook
Normal growth at Flickr in the past year:
- 4x increase in photo requests/second
- 2.2x increase in uploads/day
- 3x increase in database queries
The largest average peak is 3,500 photos uploaded per minute
Weekly spike in uploads every Sunday night
Weekly spike in traffic every Monday morning

Also, I answered a trivia question correctly (How many members does Flickr have? I said 30 million, it was 33 million) so I won a free premium account.

Facebook: A newspaper's best and worst friend

Posted on October 20, 2008 by ryan

Guest blog by Ryan Chartrand

The problem

Newspapers have made some pretty desperate moves in the last few years. They’ve cut pages, cut staff, cut paychecks, but then decided to try to add social networking to their Web sites.

Sure, it was a great idea; the problem was they were too busy cutting and scrambling to notice that it was just another desperate attempt at “innovation.”

The turning point

And as much as I didn’t want to believe it, the turning point came in May 2008. When the once-messiah of digital journalism Rob Curley jumped ship from Loudon Extra, the forerunner in innovative community sites attached to a newspaper Web site, newspapers started to rethink the idea of community sites.

I work at a major newspaper in a major California city that felt the effects only a month later. Our community site hadn’t even left its “beta” stage before the paper abandoned it…partially (there are still some advocates left in the building, likely to be laid off soon anyway).

The saddest part of this little memory in digital journalism history is that a lot of people thought community sites would be what saved newspapers.

Bringing the community together in a fully-interactive space where they could have profiles, post pictures/video, talk to people with similar interests, become more politically active, etc. were all possible through these community sites once they got off the ground.

Sadly, “off the ground” was a marketing dream that eventually turned into “buried in the ground.”

The blame

So who’s to blame for newspapers’ last hope? The site that already offered all of this, of course: Facebook.

Newspapers rarely hire the right people for the Web, and they suffer because of it. At my paper, the technology used to develop the community site was clunky, bland, and not nearly as robust as Facebook.

Facebook has always been and always will be clean, easy to use, consistent, and very robust in its capabilities.

With that in mind, here’s what people wanting to get involved with social networking were faced with:

While newspapers had a lot of features to offer similar to Facebook (not nearly as many, of course), it seemed silly to join a social network that had 10 people while all of your friends partied in the Facebook castle next door. There’s simply no way to compete with these massive networks that have already claimed the territory.

Some newspapers were semi-successful in their attempts at generating communities, but the costs of maintaining these sites rarely exceeded the gain.Should newspapers completely abandon this innovative idea then? Is it truly hopeless? Once again, the answer lies in the beast that is Facebook.

Giving in

If you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em. I really think newspapers are focusing their efforts in the wrong part of town, and if they actually went to where the people are, they’d have the potential to bring in the community they desire.

Should newspapers actually make the switch to Facebook, they’re going to need developers to build them applications. CNN and New York Times have a few cute applications, but nothing that really helps engage people, as they’re mostly RSS-generated info. (Although I must say, CNN’s public forum connection to Facebook is quite brilliant).

Considering the amount of information a newspaper receives daily, coming up with innovative ideas for applications should be simple; finding people to develop them, however, won’t come easy.

The future

But just imagine applications like the Washington Post’s blog Buzz Map (a map that geocodes keywords from blogs and news stories and places them on a map according to the keywords) that would also pull data from what its “fans” are saying on walls and notes. If a newspaper offered a dozen of applications like this on its profile and distributed them to fans’ profiles, people would actually be interested in connecting and “friending” a newspaper (which seems impossible, I know).

Or an application that shows breaking news or live blogs on your profile. People want ways to make their own profiles come alive, let alone the newspaper’s profile. And just to make advertising happy, how about an application that feeds off of the paper’s classifieds, showing the latest jobs or private party cars posted?

These are just a few random ideas, the point is that there is plenty of room for creativity and rethinking the newspaper and how it can be applied into a social network.

Online journalists think that because they’ve made poor replicas of Facebook that they’re being innovative and saving newspapers. What we need to do is put newspapers into an actual social network with actual people and see where truly innovative ideas can take the industry.

The idea of online communities merging with newspapers shouldn’t be abandoned quite yet; at least not until it’s tested in a real, populated social networking environment.

I think we could see a much stronger connection develop between newspapers and their communities through this relationship with Facebook. If we could just leave the tent outside and go where the communities really are, if we could just serve people the way they want to be served and where they want to be served, rather than trying to take them away from their networks, newspapers really could still have hope online.

Google tools to use in the newsroom

Posted on October 10, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

Google Calendars

Things to schedule:

Budget meetings
Deadlines
Must-cover events
Special editions

Why it’s useful:

Can be shared with everyone on staff
Collaborative – everyone can contribute
Embeddable

Google Documents

What to use it for?

Stories: If the newsroom server goes down, it’s good to have all your stories saved somewhere remotely (or, if a natural disaster forces you out of the newsroom, your resources are still available)
Organization: You can easily filter stories by section, and they’re color coordinated
Collaboration: Editors and reporters can see who’s working on which document. You can also see “history of revisions” to see who changed what
Contact lists: Use Google Spreadsheet documents to keep a cumulative list of all your key contacts.
Data collection: Keep information for in-depth research (council member salaries, history timelines, etc.) in spreadsheets that can be accessed anywhere

Google News Archives

What is it?

Online database of news archives dating back 200 years (obviously, though, the collection of articles isn’t complete yet)
Small cost: Some publications require a small fee of $2.95 to access an archived article. They do, however provide a pretty thorough preview.

Why use it?

While microfiche is free and basically the same thing, when working on a tight deadline for a story, sometimes the few extra dollars is worth the time it will save you to dig through library archives
Quick, efficient way to do research on a topic in a hurry

Google Alerts

As Ronald Wong reminded me in his comment (how could I forget?) Google Alerts are one of the best tools for editors and reporters (especially beat writers). Google alerts show you news as it breaks and give you the potential for great story ideas.

What is it?

Google e-mails you links to anything on the Web that pops up with your keyword in it
E-mails can be sent weekly, daily or as-it-happens
Examples of a few of my Google alerts:
- Cal Poly (unfortunately I get Pomona results galore)
- Mustang Daily
- Lauren Rabaino (not vain! You should know what’s being said about you on the web)
- Warren Baker (Our university president)
- Joss Whedon (that’s just for fun)
Other ideas to consider:
- Name of your sports conference (if you’re a sports editor/sports beat reporter)
- Specific clubs/groups on campus
- Faculty associations (for the CSU it’s the California Faculty Assoc.)

Anything I missed? Let me know and I’ll add it to the list…

Twitter election center is amazing

Posted on October 2, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

I have never experienced anything like watching live comments on a VP debate as it happens:

http://election.twitter.com/

Web 2.0 is truly amazing…

Update: Chicago Tribune redesigns, drops "Trib" rumor

Posted on October 1, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

The big Chicago Tribune redesign has been released and, not surprisingly, it’s not the version that was heavily circulated around the Web that featured the title “Trib.”

Here are a few before and afters:

A prototype that surfaced the web last week showed a front page the read “Trib” big and bold across the masthead– a bold move that the traditional newspaper apparently wasn’t quite ready for.

While the new design is obviously a lot more modern, will it work? Newspapers won’t survive by simply giving themselves a facelift. They have to start from within and change the content to match the new design. What does that entail?

More features
A more magazine/blog-like appeal
More modern design (like the Tribune)

My theory is that newspapers cannot keep using print to try to break news. If newspapers want to make it, they need to stop cutting jobs and pages. They need to add pages and add jobs. Change the content to be an in-depth analysis of yesterday’s news that was already broken on the Web.

When TV got big, radio was supposedly going die. That was almost 80 years ago.

The industry isn’t dying. It’s changing. We need to embrace it.

Recruiter: "Content producers are reporters of present/future"

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

I previously blogged about Sign On San Diego’s interactive job fair, and now that it’s live and running, I didn’t miss an opportunity to chat live with a San Diego Union-Tribune recruiter.

Here are the basics of our chat Monday:

[Comment From Lauren]
I’m a journalism student, but very few people I know are actually graduating to get journalism jobs. In the next few years, where do you see the biggest need in the journalism industry? Where should I focus my studies now to ensure I get a journalism job in two years?

Chris Courter: kudos to you: This is an outstanding question. I would recommend learning online skills such as HTML, some common programming languages, and a content management system in an effort to pursue online positions such as content producers. Content producers are the reporters of the present and future.

[Comment From Lauren]
Chris, when you say “content” producer, are you talking editorial-related content (multimedia/interactive reporting?) or more of marketing-related content (such as this job fair)?

Chris Courter: We hire both types on a regular basis and will continue to do so. The variables that distinguishes journalists these days are their multimedia and online skills.

His response, although seemingly good news for a new media enthusiast such as myself, wasn’t satisfying. I still feel like I won’t get a job. So yesterday, I asked a different recruiter a similar question during the live chat.

[Comment From Lauren]
I asked this same question of Chris yesterday, but now I want to hear your perspective. I’m a journalism major but I don’t feel as though I’m going to get a job in the journalism industry, despite my web knowledge. Is there anything else I should focus on to ensure I get a journalism job by the time I graduate in 2 years? Graphic design? Marketing? Or should I just give up on the journalism industry?

Alicia from the U-T: That’s a good question. Only you know if you want to pursue another field.

Alicia from the U-T: Internships are also a great way of getting experience and networking.

Alicia from the U-T: Journalism is a tough industry but I think there still are a lot of opportunities.

Alicia from the U-T: Networking in this industry is key. Consider going to association meetings.

As you can see, even those working in the industry don’t really know how to answer the question. But two key things are taken from these conversations — to get a journalism job you need to know the web and you need to know people. The end.

P.S. I encourage everyone to take a look at the job fair this week. It’s a completely innovative approach to looking for jobs online with speaker session podcasts, resume critiques, company video, live chats and more. The Union-Tribune chat is happening right now until 2:00 p.m. PST.

SDU-T tries to win against Craigslist

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Lauren Rabaino

Why go to a newspaper site to find/post job listings when Craiglist is easy and free? Localization and interactivity is the answer at the San Diego Union-Tribune.

SignOnSanDiego.com, the U-T’s site, is doing something completely innovative and brilliant– an interactive job fair.

The job fair, dubbed Mega Jobs, has a motto of: “Go to work. Look busy. Find a new boss.”

While most online job fairs is just a list of links, Mega Jobs features:

Live recruiter chats
“Meet the recruiter” videos
Expert resume critiques
Speaker session podcasts
Resume posting/searching

The entire process of looking and learning about jobs can be done from home, from Starbucks, from work — anywhere. It’s free to participants and easy to access. Localization just might be the only way to win over Craigslist job classifieds.

Lauren Rabaino

An associate producer at The Seattle Times. Blogs here about journalism, design, life.

Category Archives: internet