Here are my choices for top digital tools that every newsroom should be familiar with:

1)      Storify – A great tool that you can use to gather tweets, photos, Facebook posts and tons of other media on any subject or hashtag you can search for. It’s also great because you can pull only local tweets and each “story” is can be embedded on your site. We use it a lot for displaying extensive live coverage.

Examples:

Troy voter fraud trial - http://storify.com/troyrecord/troy-voter-fraud-trial-jan-2012

Current coverage of murder trial in 18-year-old case - http://storify.com/troyrecord/murder-trial-of-george-mott-iii-jan-2012

Coverage of NY Gov. Cuomo’s state budget proposal - http://storify.com/troyrecord/gov-cuomo-s-2012-2013-proposed-nys-budget

More at http://storify.com/troyrecord

2)      iMovie – I find iMovie to be invaluable if you’ve got a Mac around that you have access to (most JRC dailies have at least one desktop in their newsrooms, from what I understand). The software is more powerful and comes with better options than editing video in FlipShare or through Syndicaster.  It also makes slideshows ridiculously easy to put together and upload as a video file to our sites.

For anyone who doesn’t know how to use iMovie, I wrote up this tutorial recently for my staff: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mb2o23112DodfQiRdrnjHXImXsKLB7FYqsdHWJ9q3AY/edit?hl=en_US

Some examples of slideshows, videos, made with iMovie:

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2012/01/24/sports/doc4f1e3edee644f770049195.txt

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2011/12/15/news/doc4eea50267d094137129398.txt

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When it comes to digital projects, it can be sometimes be hard to evaluate progress. Sure, you can check the growth in your page views, number of visits, and reader comments, but it can still be difficult to know how much of an impact you're really making in your community or the journalism industry as a whole.

Because of this, I have to say I was surprised to take a look at results of the 2010-11 New York State Associated Press Association Awards. In addition to noticing The Record pick up a few awards for writing and photography, I quickly saw that, for the first time in years, if not the first time ever, Journal Register Company newspapers took all three prizes in the awards for Online Content for publications with a circulation under 25,000.

From the AP Award website:
Online content
1st, Daily Freeman, Kingston, Live tweets from the Kingston murder trial, Patricia Doxsey, Ivan Lajara
2nd, The Saratogian, Saratoga Springs, Road to the Title: Saratoga Springs High School Ice Hockey team, James Sherrill
3rd, The Record, Troy, Bringing the World Series trophy home, Kevin Moran, Ed Weaver, Brian Bouyea, Bill Passonno, Tom Caprood, Chris Fitzgerald


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The Record has an exciting new feature for our political coverage - regular interviews with Troy's mayoral candidates Lou Rosamilia and Carmella Mantello answering questions submitted by our readers.

Every two weeks we ask our readers to submit what they would like us to ask the candidates. After the submission deadline passes, we scan through the submissions and select three questions to ask the candidates on camera (we select these only so that we don't repeat a question from week to week or air any personal attacks that may get submitted).

Once the election season kicks into high gear after Labor Day, we plan to make these videos an integral part of The Record's election website.

In addition to providing great video coverage of the election, we think that this will be an excellent way to help build stronger relationships with our readers and encourage them to interact with us more in the future.

FYI, we are currently accepting questions today for the fourth round of candidate interviews in case any of you readers are located in Troy.

Here's a look at our past interviews to date:

It's been far too long since I've updated this blog, so let me start by catching you up on the digital projects that we've been working on at The Record over the last month.

First off, I'd like to update everyone on the success we had with live-tweeting our first murder trial in Rensselaer County Court last month.

Reporter Dave Canfield spent more than three weeks sharing details from inside the court room, attracting a large number of new followers and helping change the way local trials are covered in the Capital District. The Albany Times Union also began to tweet the trial, along with local television station anchors who were camped out at the courthouse, but only after our reporter got the OK from the judge to start doing so from inside the courtroom with his laptop.

Here's a recap from the reporter's point of view:

Covering a recent murder trial on Twitter as I sat in the courtroom with a laptop proved more engaging with readers than anything else I’ve done here at The Record.

We asked for special permission to cover a long-awaited double-murder trial on Twitter, breaking the usual rules of no cell phones—let alone computers—in the courtroom. It increased the number of followers I had on Twitter by a third by the time the trial had ended.

It got the most important revelations about a well-known 9-year-old murder case out there faster than any other means I can think of could have. The added followers aside, putting our hashtag feed on our main page at troyrecord.com put it out there to people who do not use Twitter as well. I heard from some of those people.

I also heard from various followers asking about the testimony or sharing their thoughts. The mothers of both prosecutors began to follow me. Family members of both victims did as well.

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On Friday, I attended a small alumni ceremony at my alma matter, The College of Saint Rose, where I was honored as part of a newly-unveiled wall of the college's Communications Alumni Notables.

I got word that this was happening a few months ago but was never really clear on the selection process behind it before that night. After talking to a few of my former professors, many of whom I had not seen in four years since my graduation, I learned that the wall was designed to showcase what some of the department's graduates were doing in the world - including a mix a those just starting out and other who had been out in the communications field for years.


The idea is that the wall will be updated and panels will be rotated out to honor future graduates and other alumni who continue to do great work in the field and make a name for themselves and the Saint Rose Communications Department.

It is certainly a great honor to be recognized for my work with The Record and Journal Register Company after only a few years in the field. I can't thank Fred Antico, Mary Alice Molgard, Cailin Brown, and everyone else at Saint Rose enough for the recognition as well as the education I received there.

If you're interested in seeing the full wall, visit the college's Center for Communications and Interactive Media located at 996 Madison Ave. in Albany.