My ideaLab goal for the month of November is going to deal with metrics, metrics, and more metrics in an attempt to use what I learn to increase our overall page views on TroyRecord.com going forward.

So far, we've been looking at web stats on Omniture a few times a month (usually at the beginning or end of a week) to see how we've been doing, but that's about to increase exponentially.

Over the next two weeks, and continuing going forward, I plan to work with staffers at our parent company, JRC, my fellow ideaLab members, our local digital team (more on that below), as well as do my own research and experiments to determine the best ways we can use the feedback we get from web analytics to increase our traffic.Read more »

When it comes to Internet traffic, providing up-to-date, quality content is a key factor in driving the amount of page views that you can get. Being able to do that requires some kind of modern mobile technology - a resource that can be extremely valuable if you know how to utilize it.

Take last Saturday for example, when I loaned my ideaLab iPhone to our high school sports reporter Will Montgomery to cover a regional football game being played down in Kingston.

Will has always tried to keep up with his blog just about everyday and put as much useful information for readers on there as he possibly can.

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World Series Trophy awarded to the
San Francisco Giants (AP Photo)

For a little over a week, The Record has been working on an exciting project which, if we reach our goal, could bring a lot of attention to our city and some of its local baseball history.

Basically, the team that is now known as the San Francisco Giants began in the 1800's in Troy, N.Y. as the Troy City Trojans.

The team was moved to NYC after the first few years they played in Troy, and went on to change their location and name a few more times before becoming the Giants who captured the world title earlier this year.

As our Sports Editor Kevin Moran points out in the video below, the move was illegal and exhibition games were supposed to be played in Troy after the move - but those never happened.

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After weeks of meetings, shooting videos, interviewing both staff members and bloggers, and other extensive planning efforts, we held our first Community Media Lab event last night, welcoming a handful of community bloggers into our new space and starting the first of many discussions to help better our products.

Myself chatting with our roller derby
blogger Marcie Pry.

The night kicked off shortly after 5:40 p.m. on Nov. 10 with a turn out of about seven bloggers – a small gathering, but still good considering this was the first time we had an event like this and a few others couldn’t make it down because of illness or other events that came up in their own schedules.

After welcoming everyone who showed up and offering up some snacks and refreshments, we started the night by showing a video I put together of our staff explaining how our newspaper and the industry itself has changed with the push towards digital. This covered what we’ve seen over the last few years, as well as in recent months with the Digital First initiatives being pushed by our owner, Journal Register Company.

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