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March 31, 2008
Posted: 10:13 AM ET
At CNN we argue a lot about what’s news. The results of those daily discussions, of course, are displayed in bold headlines on the CNN.com home page or in stories on our cable network shows. But over on our new site, iReport.com, we’re trying something different. iReport.com is a place where anyone with a story to share is invited to upload it, and anyone else is welcome to rate it, share it or comment on it. The big, bold headlines on that site are the stories that provoke the most heated conversations or score the highest ratings. On iReport.com, you determine what’s news. And stories float to the top of the iReport.com homepage – on what we’re calling the “newsiest” list — based on community activity. The idea is that there’s news value in what people read, talk about and send to their friends. iReport.com has only been live for a few short weeks, but already the “newsiest” list has turned up some fascinating stories, and not exactly what you might find on your favorite traditional news site:
So what do you think? Are they newsworthy? Head over to iReport.com today to cast your own vote for what counts as news. Upload a story, rate someone else’s, join the conversation. Hope to see you there. Posted by: Lila King, Sr. Producer for Interactive Storytelling February 13, 2008
Posted: 04:17 PM ET
On Super Tuesday CNN.com collected user feedback through comment cards on our web site. We’ve used this feedback to improve our Elections coverage on the site and make it more useful and user friendly for our viewers. We hope you appreciate the changes and continue to come to CNN for the latest Election news and results. Below we’ve answered a few of the top questions puzzling some of our users along with answers. Got more questions? Send them to us through our blog and we’ll do our best to respond! Your Questions: I notice your Election Center pages show pledged along with superdelegates or Unpledged RNC total delegates. Why do you show this breakdown, and what’s the difference?
CNN.com shows the breakdown of delegate types to give our audience an accurate picture of who is ahead in the race for the party nomination. Pledged delegates are those delegates who are won by candidates in primaries and caucuses. They’re called pledged because they pledge to support their candidates at the national conventions. Superdelegates are Democratic officeholders and party officials guaranteed national convention seats while Unpledged RNC member delegates are Republican Party officials guaranteed national convention seats. Superdelegates and Unpledged RNC member delegates can support the candidate of their choice. In a tight race Superdelegates and Unpledged RNC member delegates can end up securing the nomination one way or the other. Thus, we think it is important to show the breakdown so that our users get the full picture of who CNN projects is ahead. More about the delegate selection process. When does CNN add states to the Election Center results pages? Your state’s page will appear within our election results navigation on the morning of your state’s primary or caucus. Once the contest is held in your state you can view the results, amount of delegates awarded, exit poll data, and more within our Elections Center. To find out when your state’s event is scheduled, check out our Election 101: Path to the Presidency, which includes a calendar of contest events. Why are the names I saw on the ballot at my voting precinct different from the names on your results tables? Some states don’t show 100% precincts reporting, even though the race happened a while ago. Why is that happening, and when will we see the rest of the results? Posted by: Lori Adams, Director of User Experience December 31, 2007
Posted: 05:32 PM ET
CNN.com and the minds behind Court TV have come together to bring you the best crime and justice coverage available. Check it out at www.cnn.com/crime. Court TV is now In Session, bringing its news gathering expertise to CNN.com with insights, analysis and behind-the-scenes scoops from its anchors and correspondents in a new blog, “Sidebar.” We’ll carry up-to-the-minute news of arrests and verdicts. Crime junkies can go behind the police tape and into the courtroom like never before, with a complete video collection of the day’s crime highlights. We’ll take you live as police announce arrests and judges mete out justice. We’ll deliver the national headlines and the top crime stories in your backyard through our regional affiliates. You’ll have easy access to hot court documents so you can see the inner workings of high-profile cases. We’ll also have links to Interpol and the FBI that can turn you into crime solvers. Of course, we’ll want to hear from you through I-Reports and our 13th Juror quick vote. To put it all in perspective, you can check out the Crime Library for everything from wise guys to serial killers. Stop by the Celebrity Courthouse for the latest celebutante DUI. And don’t forget to round up our Usual Suspects for the latest about the top trials and investigations of the day. Please, let us know how we can make a good thing even better. Posted by: Ann O'Neill, CNN.com Crime Section Producer November 19, 2007
Posted: 03:21 PM ET
When we relaunched CNN.com a few months ago, we promised to keep evolving, adding new features and functionality based on what you told us you wanted. So, we are pleased to let you know that last week we added a number of new elements, including:
Please let us know how you like the new features and what else you would like us to add. Then, stay tuned for more! Posted by: Mitch Gelman, SVP and Sr. Exec. Producer September 24, 2007
Posted: 09:38 AM ET
We launched CNNPolitics.com on Friday to open a gateway to the depth of CNN’s political reporting. We’re offering political junkies a bookmark to everything that happens in Washington and along the campaign trail. And for those whose interest in politics isn’t quite so passionate, you’ll find the latest headlines and video on the big stories and hot topics, some fun stuff and some surprises every time you check in. CNNPolitics.com brings the newsgathering of the best political team to one online destination. Our “ticker” is a constant stream of news - as it happens - from hundreds of CNN journalists. As the presidential campaigns heat up, we’re adding complete coverage from the key early-voting states. We’re also streaming live video - a LOT of video - from events and interviews with those making news. Plus, you can get an all-access pass to our comprehensive politics video library. Want to know what it all means? Find out with insight from our analysts across the political spectrum - not just what happened, but how and why it happened, and what’s going to happen next. We’re matching up presidential candidates on where they stand on issues, how much money they’ve collected, how they’re spending it and what it means in the polls. You can find key dates on the road to the 2008 elections, check out some zingers delivered in debates past or match up presidential candidates in a game of Presidential Pong. In coming weeks, we’ll give you more ways to make yourself heard. We want your thoughts - and your e-mail and video - on issues that you care about. We’ll give you ways to question the candidates yourself, and we’ll let you caucus on those issues in our online political community. And the site will get deeper and richer as the election gets closer. We’ll analyze where campaign contributions are coming from. We’ll update you on all the latest polls. We’ll track where the candidates are every day. We’ll keep a running count of who has the most delegates lined up. We’ll blog from our Election Express bus as it rolls across the country. Need more than that? Then tell us - we want to hear how we’re doing and what we can do better. Posted by: John Helton, Sr. Producer, Politics August 3, 2007
Posted: 05:47 PM ET
This time last year, the small team that produces the I-Report section on CNN.com didn’t have a whole lot to do. We’d raced to launch the brand new section page, filled it up with simple forms for collecting video and photos, and made big plans with our friends and colleagues who produce CNN TV to get the I-Reports on the air once they came in. Then we waited. Would I-Report catch on? Would people send stories? Could we get them on CNN? … A year later, before leaving work Wednesday night, I started to type up a celebratory blog post (What a year! Go team!), when I heard CNN.com producer Tyson Wheatley yell from across the newsroom, “Lila, turn up your TV! I-Report!” A bridge had collapsed in downtown Minneapolis, plunging cars into the Mississippi River below. And there on CNN was Wolf Blitzer, getting the details by phone from I-Reporter Mark Lacroix, whose apartment overlooks the bridge. Lacroix’s first instinct when he saw the deadly scene was to call 911. His second was to pick up his camera, document the disaster and send the photos to I-Report. Lacroix explained to Blitzer during the live broadcast that he often crosses that bridge on his way home, and had just happened to leave work earlier than usual that day. He’s not a professional journalist with a polished delivery — he’s someone who watched a tragic event from his apartment window, and his voice and first-person account immediately conveyed the shock and grief that any of us would feel if something so awful had happened in our own hometown. In the last year, Lacroix and hundreds of others like him have changed the way news stories are gathered and told on CNN. I-Report contributors have shared vivid, first-person accounts of breaking stories and helped to give voice and perspective to the issues behind the headlines. (You can see some of the year’s best in our interactive timeline.) In the next year, we hope I-Report contributors will have an even stronger voice in CNN’s coverage. And we’re working on some new ways to make that happen, including a new design for our page and plans to highlight I-Report debate around issues in election politics. What else would you like to see? Post a comment below to let us know, or send your own story as an I-Report. Posted by: Lila King, Sr. Producer for Interactive Storytelling July 31, 2007
Posted: 10:40 AM ET
…oh, everything. Topic pages, one of my favorite features introduced in the relaunch, can be found at the top of every page of CNN.com and sprinkled contextually throughout the site. Compiling as many as 100 news stories on a particular topic, we now have more than 100,000 of them and counting. Topic pages allow the editors and staff at CNN.com to package and present more of the daily coverage that we produce, on more topics of interest to more of our users. RSS feeds are available for each, too, whether you’re following Michael Vick’s dogfighting charges, the shocking revelations at NASA or Lindsay Lohan. Even if your news tastes are more, say, specific, we have a niche for you. Are you tracking news on Nuts and Edible Seeds? Need the latest on Texas Hold-em? (Even we were surprised how robust that coverage is.) You can also check out the popularity of particular topics in the Most Popular module on the mosaic pages, and we do! We expect our Hot Topics navigation to reflect the news of the day and the conversations of the day, as well. So much more exciting content is ahead in future phases of the relaunch, as we focus now on our in-depth coverage and the topics that will keep our attention for weeks and months ahead. Up next, we look forward to presenting some of CNN’s best reporting from Christiane Amanpour in God’s Warriors, further developing our coverage of the 2008 presidential race in the Election Center and expanding our comprehensive presentation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Look for these - and others - on the Topics page, and let us know what you’d like more on! Posted by: Jennifer Pangyanszki, Supervising Producer July 19, 2007
Posted: 11:38 AM ET
Every few weeks a small group of us here at CNN.com get together for what we informally call an “Exchange Think” session. We’ll extract ourselves from the often frenetic pace of the newsroom, find a quiet corner, and share all the cool new things we’ve stumbled upon online, let each other know about new blogs, and just dream up fun ideas for the site. Many of our discussions center around ways to enhance community on the CNN.com. For example, lately we find ourselves talking about pervasive newsgames, mash-up or green screen contests, meaningful CNN presence in online worlds, and other avenues for making user participation a compelling component of our storytelling. Building up a community on CNN.com is one of my personal passions. For our sessions, we also routinely bring in guests from across the newsroom so that we can hear about everyone’s own passionate projects. For me, one of the best things about working at CNN.com is that we have the opportunity to take our blue sky ideas and make them reality. In addition to the many planned features that we’ll be rolling out continuously as part of the evolution of CNN.com, many of our “Exchange Think” ideas have also had an impact. For example, the CNN Exchange Flickr group, which feeds into I-Reports, is one of the great ideas that came out of an Exchange Think session. The I-Report blog is another. Here are some of our favorite sites: Do you have a great idea for us? We’d love to hear all about your ideas for newsgames, mash-up contests, or anything else that would get you excited about interacting with other CNN.com users and engaging with our stories. Let us know what content or resources we can provide to make your ideas viable, and we’ll be happy to explore it. Contact us with your ideas, share your clips or creations, or just let us know about links or initiatives that should be on our radar. We look forward to hearing from you! Posted by: Karyn Lu, Manager, Site Development July 12, 2007
Posted: 11:59 AM ET
As many of you have noted through our feedback forms, we also overhauled our weather system. One thing you told us loud and clear in our research for this project was that weather was important to everyone (in one way or another). We wanted to make sure that we were able to provide you with the most useful and meaningful weather experience possible. Now, in addition to getting 10-day forecasts and a wide array of weather maps, you have the ability to save multiple locations soyou can see what the weather is like either where you’re going or where you’ve been. Once you save your weather location, you’ll see the current condition displayed on the homepage and at the top of every page. Now you can get your weather anywhere you go on the site. We’ve also gotten a lot of feedback from you about things you’d like to see. We heard you. Here’s what you’ve asked for:
Missing today’s Hi/Low forecasts
Overwhelmingly, people have requested that we add a Hi/Low forecast to our current conditions. That is currently in development and should be available soon. Adding animated weather maps The ability to have Celsius or Fahrenheit temperatures Quirky city names on the homepage And we’re not done… we’ve still got a lot of new features and advancements coming to help improve our weather system. Posted by: Dermot Waters, Dir of Technology & Bus. Strategy July 6, 2007
Posted: 10:49 AM ET
As many of you know during the beta period - and now post-launch - we are soliciting your feedback through links on the site and through this blog. And your feedback has been invaluable to us as we continue to evolve the site. In addition to helping us shape our next features, fight bugs, and simply “telling it to us like it is,” these comments have also helped us take ourselves a little less seriously and acted as a source for some internal comic relief. I receive hourly updates on comments and while it’s not possible to read them all, I have read a lot of them. Below are some favorites, each with their own special award.
Most emailed around the newsroom:
The beta page freakin rocks man! Way to keep up with technology…its like your sticking it to MSNBC! I hope you atlanta folks keep kicking ass and taking names! A Big HELLS YES!!! Its like Rikki Bobby says…Dear Lord Baby Jesus, let CNN stay all jacked up on mountain dew and go after MSNBC like a spider monkey!!! Most popular request (note we’ve fixed this!): Most harsh: Most bizarre (Coming from a blog post from “Mr. Tips”): Most said all-in-one-breath: Most to the point: And finally a special winner for the “awwwww” award: These are just a few of the diverse and always interesting comments we get through our feedback mechanisms. Thank you to everyone out there that has sent us feedback - we are and will continue to be listening! Posted by: Lori Adams, Director of User Experience |
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