Jason Clarke

Congratulations to my friend and occasional co-conspirator Lance Dutson, who announced today he’s taking a job as Director of Internet Strategy for Maine Senator Susan Collins’ re-election campaign.

As I can attest but many already know, Lance is razor-sharp and as forward on the curve as anybody I’ve met when it comes to seeing, exploring, and making great things come from the tools of new media. He and I have shared many great conversations about the ways that Maine politicians can better harness these technologies, and I’m happy that he has a chance to put his ideas to the test. I expect great things for the campaign and for the people of Maine.

For the Maine residents who think this inside politics talk a year before the election, please let me share my explanation for why Lance’s hire is much more important than that. With Congressman Tom Allen jump-starting his bid for Senator Collins’ seat, the “netroots”, or the very far left liberal blogosphere for those not familiar, already have their sights set on taking this seat, handing it to Congressman Allen, and putting the Senate further under democratic party control. With netroots attention comes thousands, potentially millions, of dollars of out-of-state money– not to mention opinions– from people across the country, all brought to bare towards the goal of defeating Senator Collins. Since those who watch politics closely already know that the left is doing a superior job marshaling online resources and money in this way via new media channels that we’re frankly behind on in Maine, it’s easy to see how Maine people can potentially be left out of deciding who becomes their next Senator.

If you don’t like those prospects– if you want the race to be about Maine issues, decided primarily by Maine people– then you recognize that a strong new media force to face that of Allen’s out-of-state netroots supporters is not only necessary, but critical. I have the highest hopes that with Lance working for Senator Collins in this capacity, her fortunes- and thus ours as Mainers- have improved greatly.

Congratulations to two Maine journalists for recently winning two significant national honors:

Richard Anderson, publisher of Village Soup, has been awarded a Knight Foundation grant for $885,000 to take the platform and technology behind the VillageSoup websites and make them open-source.

Alicia Anstead, a Bangor Daily News columnist, has been awarded a Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard University. Anstead “represents exactly the kind of journalist we were hoping to attract: someone with a deep commitment to the local community,” according to an AP article on the announcement.

Following several recent efforts to create a more interactive website, the Bangor Daily News is on the verge of launching a new user-generated content section, jasonclarke.org has learned.

“We are launching a brand new community publishing platform”, Online Services Manager Tim Archambault said in an email interview. He gives the timetable for the launch as “the next couple of days.”

The new community section will replace the News’ soon-to-be-former community.bangornews.com, a collection of staff-written blogs presented as a separate website and promoted sparingly on the bangordailynews.com homepage. Archambault describes traffic for the outgoing community site as “not overly strong.”

Rock Blogster, one of the current Bangor Daily News blogs

Though he won’t disclose specific plans for the new section, Archambault says that it will “hopefully [include] any and all content the public deems important.” Given this description, the News’ new “community” platform is likely to expand upon the current crop of staff-written blogs to invite contributions of text, photos, and potentially video from people in the News service area, which stretches from north of Bangor to the coastal regions and into central Maine towns like Newport.

The revamped section will be the third incarnation of blogs in some format for the paper since September 2005, when it launched blogs on Hurricane Katrina and energy issues. In its most recent incarnation, the community.bangornews.com domain features corporate-produced blogs on Maine politics, personal advice, area music, and the Red Sox spring training season, “all of [which]” will be carried over into the new community website, according to Archambault.

If it opts to expand its interactive components beyonds blogs to accept user-generated content, the News will follow a trend many national newspapers are pursuing in the wake of falling advertising revenues and subscription counts. But it faces stiff competition from two other Maine papers that already have a head-start publishing a variety of content submitted by readers. Both the coastal region Village Soup website and Blethen Maine Newspapers’ My.MaineToday.com feature a variety of user-generated content ranging from comments on articles to local events listings to photographs of local happenings. Up-ending the traditional “top-down” model, content in the My.MaineToday.com site, for example, is not written by reporters or newspaper staff but rather uploaded and managed by website visitors.

Inviting local citizens to help create the content of a local or regional news site is a bold strategic move for media outlets struggling to grow readership, but it can also be a risky proposition. One of the emerging “citizen’s journalism” movement’s early leaders, Backfence.com, opened to great fanfare in 2006 only to struggle mightily throughout its early existence. Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported that one of the company’s founders had left amid struggles with investors over how best to expand the organization, which had struggled to attract contributions from people even in heavily-populated suburban areas such as Reston, Virginia.

That said, the Bangor Daily News is not dealing with the exact same challenges as Backfence.com. While the News readership is comprised of less population than the suburban areas targeted by Backfence.com, it covers a wider geographic footprint and competes amidst a less-crowded media marketplace. However, the News still faces other challenges inherent in launching any user-generated news venture, such as “will people care?” and perhaps more importantly, “will they even visit?”

To meet these challenges, Archambault says the BDN will “absolutely” give the new community section more visibility on the bangordailynews.com website. He also hints the News will “hopefully” cross-promote the people’s contributions by re-purposing online content for the printed paper. If that’s the case, Maine could be the home to a third major community-driven news venture as early as this summer.

In this week’s issue of The Maine Edge, Tekk columnist Justin Russell explains RSS and how it can help you browse the web smarter:

If you’re a seasoned Web traveler, there’s a good chance you’ve developed a standard routine over time. Your daily site checks may lead you to your favorite news sites, stock quotes, online stores or comic strips. Staying on top of your favorites can quickly become a major task. What if the latest news and information from your favorite sites could come to you automatically as it is posted?

That’s the world of content syndication. Syndication pushes new content to viewers automatically wherever they are using a technology known as RSS feeds. Many popular sites use syndication to enhance their readership and make it easy for viewers to stay in touch with their site. Checking the latest news or sports scores can be as easy as checking for new e-mail.

Justin was kind enough to interview me for the article (though I’m still not sure why). Head over to The Maine Edge and check it out!

Thanks to MaineToday for adding this site to their list of local Maine blogs!

Welcome to a new alternative weekly publication in my local area: it’s called The Maine Edge, and it covers arts, technology, sports and more in Bangor, surrounding communities, and nationwide. I like the upbeat, positive tone and the coverage seems to be pretty competitive in terms of not just trodding the same ground as our major daily.

And in this week’s issue, they’ve got a nice article explaining podcasting written by Justin Russell. If you’re looking for Maine-centric podcasts– and come on, who isn’t– there are a couple out there besides Maine Impact, the one I co-host with Lance Dutson (we’re currently on hiatus, btw). Here is just a sample; for more, search the iTunes podcast directory for “Maine”:

1. Maine Democrats podcast, from Maine Democrats.org
2. Maine Things Considered, Maine Public Radio (link points to iTunes Music Store)
3. Maine PodCache, Maine Geocaching Association (link points to iTunes Music Store)

Thanks to my friend Lance Dutson, who is keeping things active over at Maine Impact while I’m spending time with family. In this week’s episode, Lance has a lengthy conversation with Jeff Inglis, editor of The Portland Phoenix newspaper. We’ve talked about blogs, we’ve talked about the mainstream media, and this time, Lance and Jeff talk about Maine’s “alternative” media, which is thriving, thanks to publications such as the Phoenix.

Take a listen to this week’s Maine Impact and don’t forget to share your comments!

My friend and co-host Lance Dutson has an excellent op-ed in today’s Bangor Daily News in which he, ah, encourages the Maine GOP to kickstart itself by using some new technologies. These are topics- Republicans, and new technologies- that are near and dear to my heart, and even if he weren’t my friend I’d say Lance nails this topic.

Some key thoughts:

The prevailing wisdom of Republicans this election cycle was that candidates needed to go door to door to get votes. While this presents an idyllic and quaint portrait of Maine life, it is an utter waste of time and resources. No candidate in any district can effectively seize control of the political dialog when they are hamstrung between their everyday job and what amounts to a slow-motion marathon race around their district. Political candidates win when their name is known, and the technology exists today that makes lack of message resonance an unforgivable political crime.

If you’re a Republican in a leadership position here in our great state, it wouldn’t hurt you to take a few minutes and read what Lance has to say.

In today’s 9th episode of Maine Impact, we break down the election that was and outline some possible next steps for Maine’s losing candidates. Head over and take a listen!

Hola Mainers,

Barbara Merrill is an independent considering a run for the Blaine House. Because her hopes rest on a Clean Elections candidacy, she needs your help to gather the required contributions to qualify for Clean Elections Status.

Please- even if you’re supporting another candidate- take a few minutes, and $5 of your hard-earned dollars, and mail it off to the Clean Elections Fund on behalf of Merrill. It’s an easy, wholesome, and meaningful way to support a slightly more interesting, slightly more varied, and slightly-more issue-oriented campaign season here in Maine.

And oh yes- she needs you to send out your check(s) today, as tomorrow (Friday) is her deadline. It’s not too late, especially if you get to the mailbox before this evening.

Donate $5 to the Clean Elections Fund to support Barbara Merrill’s campaign →

PS - If you want to vett her before you send in the cash, check out her site or Lance Dutson’s recent interview with her.