Therefore, here is a game plan for all of y’all–from those who love the holiday cheer and those who feel more bah-humbug–combine your holiday celebrating with your holiday shopping.

Here is how it works: Franklin Street is home to breweries. These breweries also server as restaurants/bars, which you probably plan on visiting at some point this month. These breweries sell beer you can take home, in kegs, growlers and cans. People like beer. Perhaps you see where these facts are leading: buy beer for loved ones. It’s a gift unique to Franklin Street, and you can share the joys of your favorite local beers-on-tap with those who aren’t lucky enough to visit this street every week. I plan on investing in some for my dad.
The two obvious places to start are Top of the Hill and Carolina Brewery. At Top-O, you can buy a 6-pack of cans of their Leaderboard Lager or Ram’s Head IPA for $6.99. If you like your beer in larger, refillable containers (and who doesn’t?), you can buy a growler, which is a 1/2 gallon jug of beer, in any variety for $16.99 the first time. Then you pay$12.99 when you want your jug refilled.

Carolina Brewery also lets you take home growlers of their brews, $11.95 for the first one, $8 for a refill when you bring it back. Of course, you can also get their Sky Blue Golden Ale and Copperline Amber Ale in kegs to take to family celebrations. Full-size kegs (1/2 barrel) are $129, pony kegs (1/4 barrel) are $75 and mini kegs (1/6 barrel) are $60. All kegs require a $100 deposit (which includes tap and bucket) so to afford this gift you may want to cut back on all that takeout food you’ve been ordering to fuel the exam studying.

Enjoy your holiday festivities!

Last week I saw that ABC News has joined the bandwagon. I found out about this from CyberJounalist, not from Facebook, because for as much as I love the site, I avoid almost all the new applications. CyberJournalist wrote, “ABC News and Facebook have partnered around the presidential election, integrating the network’s news coverage with Facebook and new tools for discussing the campaign.” The US Politics Applicationincludes debate groups, links to register to vote and tell your friends, top ABC news and video, what’s on the political radar and the ABC News/Facebook Election Pulse. These results were interesting. For example, people on Facebook like Barack Obama better than Hilary Clinton, the reverse of the ABC News poll. The application also allows you to see which politicians your friends support.

CyberJournalist also said the debate groups will be a companion to back-to-back Democratic and Republican Presidential candidate debates in New Hampshire, hosted by Facebook, ABC News and WMUR-TV. I couldn’t determine whether people could vote more than once on the proposed questions, but if not, then the 9,191 people who voted on the issue of same-sex marriage is impressive. However, the results, like with the Facebook presidential poll, are different than the opinions of the American public as a whole, with 53 percent of responding Facebookers saying that same-sex marriages should be allowed and treated equally. Only 18 percent supported neither same sex-marriage nor civil unions.

Also cool if you are a journalism fan–you can use Facebook to follow the ABC reporters embedded within each of the presidential campaigns. For example, Raelyn Johnson is in Icy Des Moines, according to her latest status update.

While I didn’t add the application, I enjoyed exploring it, and may click back to it from time to time to explore the way that the data collected from people’s Facebook profiles differs from ABC News’s larger polls. If you can’t get enough politics or ABC News coverage, I recommend checking it out.

What do y’all think about media outlets utilization of Facebook? Inevitable, annoying, innovative, unnecessary or what?

The Star Car can be driven to wherever the news is happening and then report live online. The Car uses a cell phone with wireless capabilities and can connect to the Internet anywhere in Cleveland County. The Car has a camera to show what’s happening to those watching online and GPS tracking so people can see where the car is going.

I went to the Star Car section of the paper’s Web site. The Saturday evening’s picture of the last event covered, the Shelby football game, was too small and not very exciting. The rest of the page was more interesting, with videos of where the Star has been and a schedule of where it will be going in coming weeks. You can also schedule a visit from the Star Car. This is a great PR tool, and the site should make this option more prominent. The Star Car has lots of potential, especially in situations of breaking news. I see this as a tool that could be successfully implemented by papers across the US, as long as the staff supported it and efforts were made to let every reader know about it.

I went to the homepage to see how the Star Car section was promoted. The top banner was “Developing News–Live: Grover Christmas Parade, happening now.” This is great. I would love to visit my local paper’s site and see what it is covering at that minute. Under that was The Star Car banner. The story in the top left of the page was the top Star Car story, the previously mentioned football story: ”Shelby advances to 2AA West Finals.”

I explored the page further. It featured the top local news and AP news. What I liked best was how prominently the site featured video: top videos, the latest shared videos and the latest national videos. It listed interactive features, reporter blogs, community blogs, podcasts, polls…all before the usual lists of categories and corresponding headlines. The layout wasn’t revolutionary, but this is a paper working to use the tools the Internet, showing readers that it can provide more than the day’s top headlines.

My first impression of the site was that the CQ Politics logo was too small. It was overpowered by the large banner ad across the top of the page. When I visited Saturday evening, the only pictures on the homepage were advertisements and a columnist’s mug. So much for the promised videos and photo galleries.

I did track down two pictures when I clicked on the “2″ and “3″ options in the main box in the top left of the page, which led to two other top stories. The numbers, however, meant nothing to me as a reader, and I wouldn’t have clicked on them if I wasn’t spending a longer-than-average amount of time exploring the site for this assignment. The “2″ and “3″ stories were more interesting to me than the featured “1,” and I wondered how the site assigned the top three stories to the numbers.

Scrolling down the short homepage, a length I liked because I tend to get bored on my way to the bottom of those very long news homepages, I saw a political wire, poll tracker, Greg’s List (useful links to political information), and fund raising information. The best blog name was “Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix,” though I may have been drawn to it because dinner time was approaching.

Then I clicked on what really interested me on the site: PolitiFact, a joint venture with the St. Petersburg Times. As a class, we explored this site in a discussion last week on databasing and giving readers the tools to create the story for themselves. It features a truth squad database that uses a “truth-o-meter” to measure the validity of claims made by presidential candidates. Finally, here was the multimedia: video fact-checking and even a music video of the PolitiFact theme song, Gimme the Truth. I like The Attack File scorecard, which measures the truth of the allegations candidates make against each other. The validity (or more often, the lack-there-of) of smear campaigns is important to verify. The site also makes it easy to contribute facts or story ideas, an important feature to keep sites interactive and in touch with its readers.

CQ Politics is a good site if you are looking for the day’s top political headlines. But if the typical political discussion bores you to tears, this won’t be the site to suddenly make you care about the Massachusetts congressional race. Check out which candidates’ pants are on fire according to the Truth-o-meter, scan a few headlines and go on about your day.

The site has a clean look. The set-up, with a dominant photo and headline at the top left, is typical. Red labels denote breaking news, and scrolling headlines and weather updates are at the top of the page, adding movement and drawing the eye.

As expected, The Roanoke Times is rich in online exclusives. The site features the latest blog entries and comments and the latest features in video, sports, etc. These are placed higher than the lists of recent headlines, giving the strong impression that this site is putting online innovation first.

I clicked on the DataSphere icon, which was rather unimaginative. It would have been more interesting, and fit in better with the rest of the online exclusives, if the drawn icon was replaced with a picture or graph that represented the latest big database entry.
Datasphere’s categories included education, public safety, real estate, government, politics, sports, outdoors, health, entertainment, environment (a blank entry), business transportation, weather, maps and community. To the right of the screen, visitors can see the latest comments on the datablog, an excellent tool for editors to hear from readers about the successes and failures of the data features. Also to the right is “Data in the News,” which is helpful for readers who are stilling trying to grasp the role that data plays in journalism, as well as a list primary sources, good for the readers wanting to delve deeper into the data.

All the data is easy to search, and DataSphere’s slogan, “The data that matters in the Roanoke and New River Valleys and beyond,” provides the motivation of the feature.

Maybe I am a journalist-type nerd, but I like searching through data. I find the increasing trend of news sites creating databases of information that matters to readers an important one. Databases are often clearer than long articles and make it easy to compare data, such as crime stats and home sales, across periods of time. I don’t think I am alone either. Think about the long popularity of almanacs and books of world records–easy to digest data is fun and useful. Facebook is really just one big database that students can spend hours searching looking for events, groups, classmates and that hot guy they saw at the bar last week. Everything about us and the news that affects to us can be broken into data: who, what, when, where, why, how. Endless categories that can be put together in endless ways.

Starting tomorrow, however, I am once again making plans to go out after dark. If you’ve also let obligations get in the way of fun, here are some events this week to inspire you to break out that party dress. I was sure to hunt down ones that support good causes because, let’s face it, final projects and exams are looming. We need all the good karma we can rack up, and if we earn it while drinking a beer, so much the better.

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007

What: Relay for Life’s “Get Relei’d Party” Where: W.B. Yeats When: 11 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Halloween, however, was bigger than ever this year, according to an articlein the Daily Tar Heel, and I was in the middle of it, bringing with me two out-of-town kids from UNC-Charlotte. As for costumes, my favorite part of Franklin, Transformers were a popular choice, and YouTube clearly had an influence. Friends reported seeing a few “My New Haircut” looks (warning: link contains profanity) but were disappointed that no one they saw chose Old Gregg. I only witnessed one person tossed (literally) out of East End, the bar I made it into, and the police reported 13 arrests, fewer than last year. Medical calls were down as well, and I am proud to report that no one I was with spilled the contents of their stomach on Halloween, thank goodness.

It’s sad to think this was most likely my last Franklin Street Halloween. Luckily, it was an amazing night, and I hope you all’s night was fab as well. Feel free to post any exciting sights from the night!

During fall break, I finished the book “We the Media” by Dan Gilmore (a print columnist and blogger), which discusses grassroots journalism as a phenomenon made possible by the advent of the Internet. His definition of a Weblog is “an online journal of short web postings, usually posted in reverse chronological order (most recent item first).” The example he provides is, of course, his own blog.

The definition is straightforward, but the particulars get sticky. Most of the time, though, when people are debating “What is a blog?,” the question soon becomes something more along the lines of ”What is a good blog?” By all basic definitions, this is a blog. I post little bits, usually a couple of posts a week, and WordPress presents them to the public, highlighting the most recent posting first. I am, therefore, by definition, a blogger.

In practice, however, I am hardly a successful or extremely driven one. My blog isn’t highly read, and I don’t encourage people outside my class to read it yet because I am still exploring the form. My comments are few, and they encourage little real discussion. I can’t figure out how to make the font larger or darker in color without switching my format, which I am loath to do, but probably soon will because a journalist cannot ignore the pleas of the readership, limited though it may be. I have twice tried to include pictures in my posts, without success.

Discussing my blog won’t get us very far, obviously, so I turn now to three of the blogs Ryan Thornburg asked the class to explore. The first is Rep. Heath Shuler’s blog, found at my hometown paper’s site. He posts about three times a week, using a very professional (read: boring and safe) voice. He receives a few comments on the bigger topics, sometimes as many as 11, usually intelligent and on topic, but the comments are all directed at Shuler. There was little to no conversation between those reading the blogs, nor was there any between those commenting and Shuler. Yes, it’s a blog, but it’s hardly doing anything earth-shattering or to draw the public into real discussion.

The Blog Maverick is certainly a far more established and active blog, with very loyal readers. His posts are interesting (and probably would have been more so if I had any interest in Dancing with the Stars), and he managed to write intelligent, witty posts about the media with clear opinions, usually without using first person. When I picture a thriving blog, this is much closer to my image.

The last blog I visited was the Breaking News blog of the LA Times’ Web site. I was confused as to who was actually making the breaking news postings, but I assume that they are staff writers. I didn’t see much difference between these “blog” posts and regular online updates. None of the recent ones I saw on Sunday had any comments. The blog did a good job keeping the story of the fires updated with the latest information, but I didn’t feel like I was reading a blog. Perhaps “update message board” would be a more appropriate classification?

I am so glad I can walk to Franklin from my apartment, but if you are not that lucky, call (919) 962-3951 (weekdays, 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m.) for more campus parking/transportation information or visit the UNC Department of Public Safety’s link about Halloween.
http://www.dps.unc.edu/dps/specialevents/Halloween%202007.htm If you want to know about shuttles and town parking, go to Chapel Hill’s site.
http://townhall.townofchapelhill.org/police/Press2007/Halloween2007.htm

The event is held at Players because it’s the venue that brings Carolina Cancer Focus the most proceeds, says board member Anna Pryce. “They have it there every year.”

As an added incentive, Players typically has ½ off at the bar on Thursdays. Wear pink, drink cheap and give money to support cancer research? Sounds like a satisfying night on Franklin Street.