Weekly Newspaper Focus: Effective Web Sites for Weekly Newspapers

(www.regonline.com)

We’ll cover the basics of what you need on your Web site and what you don’t, how to keep it active and what kinds of costs you might incur. How much should your Web site reflect the paper or go beyond it? How can your site improve the print product? This Inland Webinar will address design and user research, staffing, writing for the Web and new revenue opportunities. This isn’t intended to dive deep on any topic but to give you a solid overview of how you stack up, where you should go and what not to bother with! We’ll include live feedback on the first 10 Web sites that sign up!

Not long ago, our speaker for this session, Bill Ostendorf, was a newsroom editor who didn’t know much about the Web. In fact, he didn’t want to know much about it. “I was busy doing print stuff and didn't have room in my head for all the issues of the web,” he recalls. But he eventually took the dive and has now not only redesigned more than 100 web sites but has built one of the leading software firms providing web software for media companies. “This doesn’t have to be mysterious,” he says. “You can have a good Web site that makes sense to both you and your readers.”
With Bill Ostendorf, president, Creative Circle Media Consulting, Providence, R.I.