Contest: Help Make Kingstonist Better
It’s been a slow news day, and that has allowed me to catch my breath and briefly mull over some of the recent changes to the site, as well as the way ahead for Kingstonist. From day one, we wanted Kingstonist to be community-driven, including but not limited to content and the resulting conversation. Thus far, getting people to volunteer their time has been the biggest challenge, but we’re now at a point where we have a pretty decent base of regular, engaging contributors, as well as an ever-growing number of daily readers. Our collective brand of Kingston-centric content is now available via Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter. Furthermore, we recently redesigned our flagship site, re-launched our events calendar, and have rewarded readers with half a dozen contests. While we remain focused on developing better content, and giving you more reasons to visit and spread the word about Kingstonist, I can’t help but wonder what would make your experience even better.
So with that said, what type of content do you find most useful? Do you want to see more arts, politics or interviews featured on Kingstonist? Is our website easy to use and navigate? Do you want us to get rid of that pesky user login, add threaded comments, or a like/dislike button to every post? What about the advanced features and benefits? Would polls, weather forecasts, or special discounts from local business be useful? Do you hate that we don’t post on the weekend? Do you miss contests? Well not anymore! If you take the time to comment on how you’d make Kingstonist better, you’ll automatically be entered into our latest contest for a $2o gift certificate from your choice of White Mountain or Sipps. On June the 19th we’ll pick the best suggestion, reward the winner, and let you know what we’ll try to do better/differently down the road.
Thanks to Kenoir for the photo accompanying this post.
KILL THE LOGIN! CUT ITS CODE! SPILL ITS SCRIPTS!
1. would be neat to geotag stories, pictures, videos
2. while speaking of GIS things…would be neat to promote community contribution to improve openstreemap.org data for the Kingston area. Many restaurants and stores are missing so when you do a restaurant review you could post the GPS locations for it to openstreetmap to build the public database.
Even though I think its already in the works, I’d like an events calendar that is actually a calendar, with a monthly type layout. And an obvious link from the homepage to the calendar. Also, if an event is mentioned in a blog post, it should also be put on the calendar. Right now I’m a little confused between the Events section and the Calendar section.
I would like to read more content in the style of cantankerous old bastards.
I agree with rq about the format of the calender and if the coding scares you I know you can embed google calenders. So you could create a google calender for upcoming events and embed it on a page.
If you created a google calender it would be easy for you to update and people could even subscribe to it directly. You could take it one step further by making the calender public; thereby allowing other people to add relevant items to it as well.
But all in all, keep up the good work, the site is fantastic!!
I would really be interested in writing an iPhone App for the Kingstonist. I have TONS of ideas when it comes to this, REALLY cool ideas (especially with Push Notification). Harvey, you should get in touch with me :)
Why you ask? Calandar of events, geotagged stories, pictures, videos. If it were there on my phone, I would use it more than the site :)
I would love if you guys brought back posting the authors names for each blog entry. It used to be there, but now I have no idea which member of your great team I am currently reading.
Keep up the great work!