Tech Group - Beginnings

First and foremost, I must include a link to John's post because he has the cojones to say what I'm assuming the majority of us were thinking during the Q&A session/Monologue with Mark Pazniokas. I did have a question prepared and was ready to ask, but he quickly shot down my idea when he scoffed at a student's similar question, saying he was "not concerned with social networking marketing or advertising." I quickly put my hand down and do not have much hope for the site. As we've seen throughout the semester, social networking and the Internet are essentially the same freaking thing. To disregard Facebook and Twitter as valid methods to attract readers is downright foolish, and getting your name out there is just as important as having actual content.

When our tech heavy group met, our first topic of discussion was the site's launch, because we wanted to do very much the opposite of what Pazniokas is doing and spread the word around as much as possible. We are very much aware that we will first need some content before trying to spread the word, so we will amass stories and content for the first couple weeks or so, before pushing out the message in mass. We have plans to create a Facebook fan page and group page, complete with events both online and in person, a Twitter page posting tweets when our stories, and all of our developers will be posting about the site's launch simultaneously. We don't know if we necessarily want to send FB emails, as that is a little annoying, as opposed to posting in our status about the page's launch, and posting the first "major story" that we believe will hook the readers. Timing is everything, so exactly what the major story is, we wouldn't be able to say. If we are afforded the opportunity to have a journalist like Pazniokas on our staff who holds some degree of sway in the capitol, it shouldn't be too hard to get an exclusive interview or personal profile with a figure in the news today. Some examples we included were officials within Linda McMahon's camp (later launch) or officials within the DEP who were willing to discuss information about the whole Charla Nash lawsuit (sooner launch).

We have gotten off to a great start, and are resisting the urge to borrow anything "print" to stop ourselves from stepping on the hybrid group's toes. We are continuing to discuss what features we want to include, what the easiest layout to navigate would be (very easy to visualize thanks to Sheila's skeleton version of the site that she created), and how to distinguish ourselves as the CT news authority.