Drive-By Consulting: AustinChronicle.com

Why doesn’t the Austin Chronicle do more with their online presence? Given their audience and influence, there’s a great opportunity there for them.

One thing the Chronicle does exceptionally well online is making their back issues available in their archive section. You can browse back issues by date, or look for items by author, by column, by special annual issue, or by other sectional archive grouping.

Beyond that, there’s the standard “online version of the issue” presentation online. And that’s where the beginning of the opportunity presents itself. For example, Margaret Moser’s interesting piece “My Gang Don’t Bow Down” about Mardi Gras Indian Chief Kevin Goodman offers links to related stories, but no interactivity. There’s no direct link to talk about the story, offer feedback, relate your own impressions about Mardi Gras, etc. It’s still stuck in the one-way, presentation journalism model.

The best piece of interactivity on the site is the Postmarks Online forum, which I noticed on a recent visit because it was promoted in a banner ad at the top of the page. However, on a subsequent visit the next day, I had a hard time finding any type of link to it. When I did eventually find my way to the online version of Postmarks (their letters to the editor section), the forum was promoted at the end of each entry, but in small type that read: “Discuss this letter in our online forum”. The forum itself isn’t very well-trafficked. I counted 50 topics on the first page, which dated back to April 19. In those 50 topics, I counted a total of 45 replies, 20 of which were on a single topic. Also by my rough count, those 50 topics had been viewed about 1,260 times. Take away the busiest topic - “Which Country Is More Dangerous” - which had been viewed some 186 times, and the remainder of those forum topics averaged about 22 page views each.

The reason I spent so much time (and math) on the forum is that the Chronicle took a shot at the Statesman earlier this year for that paper’s efforts in creating blogs for staffers and readers. Calling the Statesman’s efforts “bland” and “not ready for takeoff”, the Chronicle did concede this point:

(Full disclosure: the Chronicle does not currently offer blogs on its Web site, although a handful of readers have turned the “Postmarks” online forum into a running town hall meeting on everything under the sun. – Ed.)

The point is, there’s not a lot of activity in this area, which presents a terrific opportunity for the Chronicle to jump into blogging as a way to foster discussion and debate. Editor Louis Black’s Page Two column is tailor-made for online production. His passionate and acerbic style practically begs for immediate reaction, and I’d love to see Black engaged in a two-way discussion with his readers. Other featured writers - Moser, Jordan Smith, Christopher Gray - would all contribute greatly to the local scene if turned loose in a more interactive format.

So to the Chronicle: Turn your talents loose, open up to your readers, and let the discussion begin. You’re good at letting loose the spark for the conversation, now spend some time tendering that conversation.