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• 

  Three More 2.0 Sites Launched Today

  Admin 6:00 pm on February 11, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Hello all,
  
  Three in one blow!

  Entercom launched three more 2.0 websites today. It reminds me of the time Mickey swatted seven flies, one thing led to another and eventually he was called upon to slay a giant. That said, the giant is nearly gone, only two more 2.0 sites left (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!). I’m determined to get these sites done next week.

  That said, who did we launch today?

  KALC “105.9 Alice” in Denver has always been a website with much to offer on the content side.  They have done a wonderful job of organizing their content and learning from many of the other sites hosted under 2.0.  Like KISW they have created show pages pulling in blogs, audio and videos under one roof.  They have also added the Twitter Quickposts to the header.  Finally they have worked with the Digital team to reconfigure the homepage “widget” player to provide a more effective text-based playlist.  Nice Job Rita and Dylan.

  Next up is WRVR “The River” in Memphis.  I must direct your attention to a great feature of this site–The Memphis Underground.  On-air host, Bill Bannister, has created a regular feature of The River site that spotlights a piece of Memphis’ past on the website.  Bill is eventually writing a book from his work, and the station is leveraging his work for the website.  Good stuff, I enjoyed looking it over.  Something about abandoned amusment parks are both fascinating and sad at the same time.  Nice Job Jonas!

  Finally KDGS “Power 93.9” in Wichita. KDGS is one of the few Hip-Hop stations we have at Entercom.  I think they have done their best to find unique ways to reach out to their listeners through social networking and especially phone text messaging.  PD Greg “The Hitman” Williams is looking forward to using the 2.0 website structure to leverage his on-air staff to contribute to the site and their listeners through blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  We’ll need to keep our eyes on this site for the next few weeks and watch their progress.

  

  That’s it.  Stay tuned for two more sites next week then I finally get to eat the Lolipop I have had in my desk since this project started…. Yeesh!

  ~n

   

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• 

  Nick’s Response to the iPad

  Admin 3:29 pm on February 1, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  As a self-categorized Apple Fan-boy (like my new haircut) I was waiting for the Apple meeting last week for a month since it was announced.  Well, over a year since rumors have been spinning about the tablet Apple had in development.

  I own a Kindle that I won at an event.  I do enjoy it and have only downloaded creative commons books open to the public (I have to still support my local bookstore) .  That said, browsing on the Kindle is a royal pain.  I much prefer my iPhone.  I would wish that the Kindle had 802.11 WiFi support so it could use the wireless in my home or elsewhere instead of the Sprint phone network .  The internet access through the Sprint phone network is nifty.  For no extra cost one can browse the web nearly anywhere there is a cell connection.  The browser is very limited and the downloads are painfully slow.  But good enough for Wikipedia.  However, the thing was designed to be a book reader, and it does that job quite well.

  Next comes the iPad (horrible name).  My feeling is I will be in the market for this.  I enjoy browsing the internet while my wife watches TV.  I don’t really like NetBook computers.  My huge fingers make using a NetBook like I am wearing mittins.   But I feel we’re missing something with the iPad.

  So how do I feel about it?  I’ll let Downfall Hitler speak for my thoughts.
  

  LOL!

  ~n

   
• 

  Buffalo’s WKSE and WTSS 2.0 Site’s Launch

  Admin 3:20 pm on January 22, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Hello,

  I’m happy to announce that Entercom Buffalo’s  WKSE “Kiss 98.5″ and WTSS “Star 102,.5″ websites have both launched, one right after the other.  The market webmaster, Heather Harwood, has worked hard implementing her vision on the design while not compromising the content offering on the websites.

  I always enjoy Heather’s design sense, and it shows on these sites.  They both have an energy that match the formats of the stations.

  The Star website is a great example of embracing social networking into their host’s profiles.  Entercom Digital’s new Twitter integration into QuickPosts has been implemented for their hosts on this site.  I’m encouraged to see this seemlessly blending into the Quickposts website’s without any problems.

  On Kiss, (again, I love the design) props to the morningshow’s Janet & Nick’s blog.  They put up a post nearly every day.  I am always happy to see this.  It is so important to have consistant postings from a show on the site.  The latest posts are added to the center area of the homepage, making a strong link into the blog and improving it’s value to the site.  If you need some direction on how to do this, please contact the Digital staff or even ITM.  We both can give you some direction on how to do this.

  

  

  
  
  
   
• 

  Seattle’s KISW 2.0 Website

  Admin 2:44 pm on January 22, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  KISW in Seattle - http://www.kisw.com

  Charlie Lybecker is the Seattle Webmaster and part-time Entercom Digital staff member.  Many of you may have worked with Charlie now and then.  Charlie brings a long career or overseeing and developing radio station websites, and it shows in his masterpiece KISW.com.

  We should all look closely at the KISW website for features that could benefit our own websites.   I notice implementations on KISW.com of many of the features we had discussed while designing this project.  It is reassuring to see them successfully added.

  What I love about KISW.com is it creates buckets of information on inside pages, not just the home page. Going into the BJ Shea page, for instance, you see the page has content similar to a site homepage.

  • It’s own flipper linking to key pages for the  show (I personally enjoy the BJ Shae “Out Pick Lil Mick” page).
  • Audio section listing audio clips specific to the show
  • Blog section listing links to recent blog posts and teasers
  • Video player for video from the show

  A nice package if you ask me.

  Other areas of interest are:

  • Weather through InterTech.  Few stations know that this is content offered by ITM for free.  Just ask ITM to add this to your site.
  • Traffic information that was gathered from the Washington D.O.T. website
  • The KISW station Schedule that integrated the same system KDFC created for their website.  Charlie and the Digital team set this up in no time.  All it took from Charlie was modifying the styles to match his site.  NOTE: If any of our stations would like their own copy of this, please ask.
  • Of course the gratuitous photos for the lads.  Notice how the page links to the photo galleries for each model.

  Nice work Charlie!

  Next up Buffalo’s two launches.

  ~n

   
• 

  Useful Tidbits, Boosting Google Rankings & RadioTown

  Admin 2:11 pm on January 7, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Heya all,

  Yesterday some of the Digital team were chatting on how we loved it when we all (all of Entercom’’s Internet web folks) shared information we find on the internet. Some of it humorous, some of it work-related some in between.  I encourage all of you to keep us abreast of any nuggets of info we find out there by using the Entercom Internet email group.

  That said, I’ll get this moving along.  I found this in an email newsletter I receive.  I almost missed it.  However, I thought it was interesting, since I consider myself a Google fan-boy.

  The secret to boosting your Google ranking. (original post found here )
  Want to land a page one Google ranking for your business’s website? The folks at the American Express OPEN Forumhave a simple trick that may help you secure prime-time search-engine result rankings. The secret? Video. With search engines like Google increasingly using “blended” search results that include videos and pictures in addition to websites, a well search-engine optimized video drastically increases your odds of landing on Google’s front page. In fact, according to Forrester Research, a business with a properly posted video stands a 53 times better chance of getting a page one Google ranking. Of course, not just any sloppily put-together video is going to boost your rankings. There are some tricks you need to follow, check out the article for all the details.

  Read More Here

  RadioTown & Google
  On a similar thread… and because I consider it a hobby of mine to reverse engineer Google as a search engine, many know that The Dalles Oregon is a major hub of some of their infrastructure.  Some of you may also find it interesting that RadioTown’s physical location is hosted downstairs from another one of these Google hubs.

  I’ll make a post soon giving you all a tour of RadioTown soon.  I have always been very proud of it’s progress.  I had taken some iPhone pictures of the rack, but it just looks like wires and blinking lights in a dark background.  One does not get the full sense of it’s power! Muhahahaha!

  Enjoy and happy videos!

  ~n

   
• 

  A Few More Launches Before the New Year

  Admin 1:50 am on December 31, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  It has been some time since we have given an update on launched websites.

  That said here are the launches that have occurred over the past few weeks.

  

  Wilkes Barre – WDMT “The Mountain“ was the final site to be launched into the 2.0 platform for Wilkes Barre.  Mat Giordano and his team have been a dream to work with.  They just chugged along and got all of their sites wrapped up for the market in minimal time.  WTMT used an interesting layout for the homepage, pioneered by The Mountain in Seattle of having the Music2Go (Tunegenie) playlist widget span down into the bottom row of boxes.  Thanks to Mat for his great attitude and strong design skills.  He is a great asset for Entercom.
  
  

  

  San Francisco – KDFC “102.1 KDFC“ is Entercom’s first Classical format to be moved to the 2.0 platform.  The classical format challenges were overcome with the leadership of Bob McDiarmid and the staff at KDFC.  They know their users better than anyone.  With their guidance the San Francisco working hard with the Digital Staff, this site has supported the strong branding of the station in their market. Big props to Bob for keeping his cool and putting in the hard work.  His great attitude made working on this project a joy.

  
  

  

  Indianapolis – WNTR “My 107.9 Online” was implementing branding change for this station with their 2.0 launch.  The site switched to a holiday site in November giving the market time to organize their upcoming site.  Then two weeks before launch a design was decided on.  The site was sliced, skinned, content added, branding changed on all assets in two weeks.  The site went live on the Monday after the Christmas weekend, so much of this work needed to be completed days before launch.  Nice work from Nick Box and Toni Moore in Indy for their hard work and awesome attitude.   I enjoyed our laughter on this project.

  

  Memphis – WMC – FM “FM 100 Memphis“ is last but not least on our list.  Jonas Stoltz has pulled together some solid content from his orignial site and provided his station with a good platform for adding more content down the road.  Working with Jonas, his work in creating content for the stations will make this new site a good platform for his and his market’s efforts in video, photos and audio.  I look forward to seeing what this station can do on the web.  They have much to work with.

  There they are.  We only have 9 stations left to work out.  Many are very close to launch. In our next update expect two game changers.  These two sites are something to behold.   The stations, and their webmasters are working hard to deliver on the content side.  Both take different paths but succeed IMO.

  Stay tuned!

  ~n

   
• 

  4 2.0 website launches this week!

  Admin 11:24 am on November 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Heya all,

  I’m happy to report a great week for the web staff in Austin, Greensboro, Greenville and Sacramento along with the busy bees in the Digital staff all working hard to wrap up 2.0 websites.

  This project has matched a record we held in April for launching four 2.0 webtsites in a week.  Nice Job!   Those of you who have worked on this project with the Digital staff understand the chalenging path it takes in order to launch one of these sites.  So cudos to the following stations:

  KAMX Austin (Dave Munoz) – http://www.mix947.com – This site must have the most prolific blogger in the company in Heather Rivera.  Her blog is named “Heather’s Thingies“, of all things.  Heather had to port over 1100 posts from her old blog into the blogs on RadioTown.   The shear number of posts actually broke the import script in WordPress it was so big. WOW!

  WQMG Greensboro (Christopher Shaw) – http://www.wqmg.com – I gotta dig the “Ol School Video of the Day”.  Good stuff for the old.  Still waiting for The Humpty Dance to show.  (I’ve dated myself)

  WSPA Greenville (Tracy West) - http://www.magic989online.com – Three words.  Ho ho ho!   On top of that, I always dig adding audio offerings on the home page. Stacy’s Tips at 6, is the kind of audio we are asking from our stations.  I look forward to checking it out frequently.

  http://www.magic989online.com

  KBCZ Sacramento (Josh Pusateri) – http://www.90sbuzz.com.  This site’s specific honor is Josh’s heroic efforts to do very fast turnarounds to get this site launched on time.  He even came in on a day he had schedule for a vacation.   Nice work Josh!

  NICE WORK ALL OF YOU!!!

  Only 15 sites left!

  ~n

   
• 

  Taylor Swift Notice

  Admin 9:03 am on October 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Some have reported an inability to vote on the “Thumbs Up” Icon on
  videos hosted by the Taylor swift website.

  The Digital team has only allowed one vote per video from the same IP
  address
  or single computer for 5 minutes.  That means if two users on a
  network attempt to vote for the same video, the second user will be
  prevented.

  We added these restrictions in order to prevent abuse in voting for a
  single video.

  That said, Entercom employees are hosted on a network with few network
  gateways.  If two users at Entercom attempt to vote for a video, the
  second will be restricted for 5 minutes.  Please keep this in mind
  when you are unable to vote.

  If you experience this behavior, please wait five minutes, reload the
  page and attempt to vote again.  If you find that this still prevents
  you from voting, please contact TSHelp.entercom.com.

  Thank you,

  ~n

   
• 

  Holiday Websites

  Admin 2:27 pm on October 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  

  Welcome All,

  The Holiday websites are being created. We’ll be meeting with the stations the week of 10/5.

  For our 2.0 websites, the Digital team has identified the best, modifiable elements on your sites’  key identifying places within the new 2.0 websites that will make this change as quick and easy as possible.

  • Website Background Image – Changing the background of your website for all pages
  • Header change – For all site pages
  • Navigation change – For all site pages
  • The backgrounds of the second and third rows of your homepage -  Homepage only.
  • Snow falling overlay – Homepage only

  Below are a few examples of designs to get us in the mood.

  

  

  
  

  

  

  
  
  

  Please feel free to reach out to me (nborders@entercom.com) if you have any questions.

  ~n

  PS: Here is an example of the snow.

   
• 

  Wordpress 2.8.4a Upgrade – This weekend

  Admin 10:41 am on September 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Upgrades, Wordpress (2), Wordpress MU

  Howdy folks,

  In light of the recent large projects on Entercom Digital’s task list, I have been putting off the Wordpress MU upgrades. This ends tomorrow! We will be upgrading radio-blogs.net’s Wordpress MU install to 2.8.4a. Most of you won’t notice the difference, however there are some cool upgrades and feature inclusions.

  We will also be upgrading Wp-super-cache, so let us know if you experience any caching issues in the next few days.

  Thanks for you patience while we get things updated. There shouldn’t be any downtime and the upgrade should go easy. If not, I will post an alert to this blog.

  In the meantime, check out this cool Lifestream plugin for WP.