No EPpy, but we're still good and getting better
Well, Gazettextra.com didn't win an EPpy last week in Las Vegas, but that's OK. As I wrote earlier, we were excited to be one of five finalists in the prestigious awards sponsored by Editor & Publisher and MediaWeek.
The Las Vegas Sun took the award in the category in which we were nominated: best overall newspaper-affiliated Web site with fewer than 1 million unique monthly visitors. The Sun is considerably bigger than the Gazette, and I'm sure it throws considerably more resources at its Web site. We do pretty well given the limitations of our size.
While Gazettextra.com is much better and award-worthy since its redesign in October, we still have improvements to make. Several visitors were kind enough to offer suggestions after my earlier post noting our traffic gains and our nomination for the EPpy.
Among the recommendations was that we add links to related and earlier stories to our current stories. We overlooked that feature when we launched the redesigned site, and our Web guru is working hard to make it happen. We should have that feature available in a matter of weeks.
I'll follow up soon with a post on some of the other suggestions and whether we can or plan to make the recommended changes.
May 27, 2008 at 2:44 p.m.
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Yeah right!
back in the day kiowa would give you a line on a womans badmitton game, if you wanted it!
May 25, 2008 at 12:44 a.m.
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Sassy:
That is sound advice if you are gambling. In this case I was simply booking action. If you balance your books (have equal action on both sides) you win regardless of the outcome. UNLESS the game is a "push" in that it lands directly on the point spread #, OR the game is canceled, which is exactly what happened there with the power going out. Then you just break even or loose all your "vig, or juice"
The losses from it "pushing" were not that big of a deal, but having to explain that entire debacle to the people who thought they had won was madness. Many people I just gave the game as a win to, so I didn't have to deal with all the BS. That, along with many other things (like booking being illegal) was why I got out of that years ago! haha. ...c2c might still take some action though! ;-)
May 24, 2008 at 7:24 p.m.
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something I learned long ago: never bet more than you are willing to lose.
I'm no gambler, so that was not necessarily advice I have needed to pull out of my memory bank very often, but it seemed fitting to state here, for some reason...
May 22, 2008 at 6:35 p.m.
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c2c:
Trust me bro, when I'm on my dying bed (hopefully many years from now) I'll STILL be carrying on about that one!
A "couple" dimes. Yeah, I WISH!
Not only that, but I had to deal with NON STOP calls because I booked a lot of action on that game from many guys around here (who all took the badgers, of course). Try explaining how a win is really a push, because the Vegas mafia decided to take out a power transformer, causing the game to be over 5 and half minutes short of completion.
ok, I'm digressing. Don't get me started!
May 22, 2008 at 4:36 p.m.
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kiowa just likes to rant about that famous game! LET IT GO BRO!! It was only what, 5 years ago?
How much did that cost you anyway, a couple dimes?
May 22, 2008 at 8:53 a.m.
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The Eppy judges, folks, are a bunch of peers -- media webmasters, editors, and producers.
http://royal.reliaserve.com/eppy/judges....
The Sun win was just coincidence. And "under 1 million visitors" contains a lot of well-known metro newspapers and websites (like the Denver Post, or Kiplinger.com). So being a finalist is a pretty nifty honor by itself.
http://royal.reliaserve.com/eppy/winners...
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/2008-eppy...
Here's the competition, a couple of which are ultimately supported & underwritten by large conglomerates:
http://app.com/
http://www.knoxnews.com/
http://www.nwherald.com/
The Las Vegas Sun no longer has its own print circulation and only runs as a special section within the Las Vegas Review-Journal and online.
http://lasvegassun.com/
It's possibly more comparable to an alt-weekly in that regard. In any event, it isn't the main paper in Vegas.
May 22, 2008 at 12:02 a.m.
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There must not be many readers in Vegas. The city is 10x the size of Janesville, and yet they are in the in the same size category as Janesville?
This sounds like ANOTHER big Vegas "mob job" conspiracy against Wisconsin! The last, of course, being the WI vs UNLV football game a few years back, that mysteriously saw the light go out with JUST over 5 minutes left in a game that the Badgers led by about 4 TD's on a 13 point betting line (a game has to go 55 minutes by Vegas sports book rules for it to be official). The Vegas mafia saved the sports books literally millions from the HEAVY action that took place in all the Vegas sports books from the over 30,000 Badger fans who made their way out there, and bet on their team!
The fix is normally in when your dealing with Vegas, so I wouldn't be to broken up over it!
May 21, 2008 at 8:01 p.m.
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Still the best laid out Newspaper that i know of keep up the great job .
May 21, 2008 at 6:55 p.m.
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You, the Gazette, have made many changes to bring us up to the town of our size if not more. Be proud of what you have done. Janesville is not a town that applauds what has been done right, more what has been done wrong. I open your site every morning to see what is going on, and, need we forget, at no cost. Good job guys and gals!
May 21, 2008 at 10:53 a.m.
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I am very surprised to hear that a local Las Vegas paper won the award. Better "luck" next year. ;-)
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