(I’m training myself to do Headlines With Words Capped on the Website, but dang it, this is MY blog and I know current style is downstyle headlines;-)
It was a long week, but a fulfilling one, getting the new KTVZ.COM up and running. It was touch-and-go for a bit, due to late problems we’re still addressing, one that delayed getting the new video system (Syndicaster) working. But it works great now – bells and whistles, just like the site itself – and the video looks far better than under the old system/site.
We’re still working out some kinks with things like the weather page, e-mails and the like. Unlike what our poll results show, most e-mails and comments have been positive about the cleaner, faster-loading site, and for that I and my colleagues are very grateful.
It was especially nice to easily be able to compile a slide show of user-submitted Pole Pedal Paddle photos, nice and big, to share with everybody. It’ll be great when the next surprise snowstorm;-), fire or other big local event happens. (I’d already posted a couple slide shows on a ‘burn to learn’ exercise and the National Guard troops’ homecoming.)
But who knew that after a night with too little sleep, the first day of the new site would end with a fiery gas tanker truck crash east of Bend? And then, on Friday, a Facebook post inquiring about sirens in Redmond led to something we hadn’t heard about – a fatal plane crash near the end of a Redmond Airport runway.
These things might not even make the cut on a big-city newscast, but it was big news here, and I got to, for example, learn how to send a breaking-news e-mail in the new system, on the fly, with a kind lady at the Internet Broadcasting (IB) help desk helping me through it.
Got a bit nervous when we dropped from Google News’ radar screen for a day or so, but looks like we’re getting better.
I wrote a long, typically Barney-rambling welcome over on the site, so won’t repeat myself here, other than to offer a hearty thanks to the folks at IB, and at the station, for allowing me to focus on all the little nitpick things I keep bringing up to make a great new site even better.
Back to making the Week 2 list of needs and wants for just that purpose. Have a good week, everybody.
Leave it to Barney 
Barney, Why can’t we post comments any more? It looks like everyone else can but not me. I tried to reply to one of the comments about the Powell Butte accident and it would never take even though I tried to follow the directions clearly. Just kept rejecting my try and I finally just gave up.
Kenna Hoyser
Well as you can tell, many people CAN comment – but the system has some bugs that I wish we could nail down. You’re one of a handful who can’t. I suggest if you use Internet Explorer and have Firefox you try that – it seems to like that better. Sorry;-/