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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There is big news in the city of Troy this week with the start of a double murder trial built on a 9-year-old case that was built for years against two men and nearly went to trial in 2010 before a third suspect was named and linked to DNA evidence at the murder scene, causing the original charges to be dropped against the two former suspects and Michael Mosley to be indicted for both murders.

Opening statements began in the case Monday, May 9 and The Record is providing as much coverage as possible throughout the proceedings.

In addition to a installing a widget listing prior articles on the case going back several years on our TroyRecord.com homepage, we also decided to take a lesson from our sister paper The Daily Freeman and attempt to live-tweet the courtroom proceedings complete with witness testimony.
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