I deleted my personal Facebook account at the end of June. At the time, I was using my preferred username: http://www.facebook.com/andrwmyr. 20 days after deleting my account, I signed up for a Facebook again. I used the same email as my previous account and all the same personal information. When I went to choose my vanity URL for the new account Facebook wouldn’t let me choose my previous username. I had to choose a new username.

I guess Facebook doesn’t attach vanity URLs to your email or other personal info. It looks like they attach it to your profile ID and nothing else. So, if you kill your profile ID you can get a new vanity URL.

If you want to kill your profile ID, this is how I deleted my Facebook account. And, Facebook’s blog post on usernames.

Update: Facebook now letting you change your username once from the “Account Settings” page.

Eastbound & Down is pure gold. I highly recommend it. F-ing hilarious show.

I didn’t watch it on HBO or Comcast On Demand because I don’t have HBO or Comcast. Instead, I typed a couple keywords into Google and found some high-quality streams on the first page of results. Buying the Season 1 DVD or paying for Comcast cable seemed like too much trouble.

What does this mean for HBO? Well, I hope they make enough money off HBO subscriptions, Comcast partnerships, and DVD sells to keep making badass shows like Eastbound & Down because I find it too easy to stream their shows online than pay for HBO or Comcast cable.

It sounds like HBO is changing their old model a bit with this announcement that they will try Comcast’s On Demand Online trial this summer. You’ll still need HBO in your cable TV package to watch HBO online, which is kind of lame, but at least HBO is starting to put their content online.

I live in Windsor, California. Not Windsor, Canada.

When I use Google to search for a restaurant or business in Windsor, California, Google assumes I am searching for something in Windsor, Canada. I have never searched for something in Windsor, Canada. Ever. Why hasn’t Google learned this with 1000+ local searches?

Look what happens I search for taquerias in “Windsor, CA”:

I shouldn’t have to change the “CA” to “California” when I’m searching from a mobile or computer located in Windsor, California. Google, why the massive fail?

I created a page (Update: Page no longer exists) aggregating PressDemocrat.com‘s available local news feeds. It’s clean, light, and navigable. Take a look and let me know what you think:

My goal is to facilitate a conversation around making the page better. I want everyone’s feedback on how to make the page better. I’m open to try anything. The page is limited only by the availability of PressDemocrat.com’s feeds.

Am I stealing PressDemocrat.com’s content or conversations? No, I’m using feeds they’ve made publicly available. And, I’m using them to redirect people back to PressDemocrat.com’s content and conversations.

Your ideas, comments, and emails are valuable to making the page better. Email us at andrew@buzzyeah.com.

When a reader leaves an insightful, thoughtful comment on Buzzyeah, it will get reblogged. Like this comment:

What you say is true. I used read the PD first thing in the morning and then check my internet news aggregator. Now I check the internet aggregator first and then the PD. I find that the PD front section is useless. It carries news stories that were on the internet news aggregators 24 and 48 hours ago. I do read the Empire section of the PD because it has more or less local news that is harder to get on my internet aggregator (probably because I haven’t bothered to tune the aggregator for local news yet). I don’t even look at the sports section much anymore because it’s all available on the net on a more timely basis. If the PD really wanted to keep my eyes on their news they would put up a portal that lenses local, national, and world news based on its impact on Sonoma county. Stories could be linked to local blogs and commentary like Memeorandum does.

Originally posted as a comment by obsequiem on BUZZYEAH using Disqus.

When I visit PressDemocrat.com, I go for one thing: Sonoma County news. Someone in Mendocino County might visit the site for Mendo County news, which is great, but not the reason I visit. Ok, with that said, how do I locate Sonoma County news on PressDemocrat.com. Ahh… herein lies the problem. Local news granularity is sorely missing on the site.

When scrolling down PressDemocrat.com’s frontpage, you won’t find sections for “Santa Rosa news” or “Windsor news”:

When you go to the “Local” page under “News”, you won’t find sections for “Santa Rosa news” or “Windsor news” either. You will find a section for Petaluma news, but that’s because its a feed for Petaluma360 one of PressDemocrat.com’s other sites:

I can’t wait until PressDemocrat.com adds clear local news granularity to the site. I’d love to visit the homepage and find sections for “Santa Rosa news” or “Windsor news”. I’d like it even more if Northern California news got the above-the-fold treatment over national news. I’d like it even even even more if Santa Rosa news, Windsor news, etc, got their own pages.

Note: I’m strictly talking about PressDemocrat.com, not the print edition. The Make PressDemocrat.com Better conversation I’m starting has nothing to do with the excellent print edition. They are completely different worlds.

Scott Karp’s Publishing 2.0 blog is an excellent conversation starter around the topic of news organizations increasing, bettering their Web presence. I’ve been reading it heavily. Here’s a couple interesting posts:

Reinventing Local News Distribution On The Web (Scott Karp on Mar 13, 2008)

Drudge Report: News Site That Sends Readers Away With Links Has Highest Engagement (Scott Karp on Sept 15, 2008)

Why Every News Site Should Put a Continuously Updated News Aggregation on the Homepage (Scott Karp on Sept 17, 2008)

Nervous About Link Journalism? Ignore Web’s ‘Cesspool’ And Tap Its ‘Natural Spring’ (Josh Korr on Oct 13, 2008)

Mainstream News Organizations Entering the Web’s Link Economy Will Shift the Balance of Power and Wealth (Scott Karp on Oct 16, 2008)

On another note, it was reported yesterday that the #3 newsmagazine US News and Report is dropping print for the Web. This is a trend that will continue to happen with news organizations. I’d love to hear more discussion and thoughts about print-to-Web transitions and strategies by news organization insiders.

Photo credit: News Int’l/AFP/Getty

My local newspaper The Press Democrat is one of the best, as far as non-national newspapers go. I read it online and since their site is my only source for local news it’s very important to me. And, like most consumers, I want my favorite products to get better. This is why I’m trying to start a Make PressDemocrat.com Better conversation.

Here are a few questions I have for PressDemocrat.com’s Online Director. I’ve split them up into questions directly for the Online Director, questions about site usage, and questions for online readers:

PD online director:
Your content focus for homepage?
Your plans for PD.com?

Site usage stats:
Most popular content?

Online readers:
Content you go to PD.com for? For example, national news, local news, editorials, pro sports, comics, etc.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.

Reader comment:

“You make some strong points. The Press Democrat has a long ways to go. And I’m not just saying that because you advocate for me to have a bigger presence in the publication. ;)
The one thing you left out was the need to improve our forums and comments. Right now the comments are often vile attacks against victims, professionals, and way too often minority groups. Very few tools have been given to online readers to help police the forums — and they don’t appear to be effective. In my opinion, our comment section in its current iteration drops the overall value of the online publication.
I’d also be interested in hearing you expand on your definition of “real blogs.” Because while I don’t have a blog, both Beck and Maiocco do. And Maiocco’s blog drives HUGE traffic to the Web site. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I think it’s fair to say his blog contributes a double-digit percentage of traffic. That said, the blogs are fairly basic, text-oriented pages, with few options for us to expand on. What more would you like to see on the blogs?”

Originally posted as a comment by Nathan Halverson on BUZZYEAH using Disqus.

My reply:

“I was saving comments/forum suggestions for Pt 2, which can be found here: http://buzzyeah.com/2008/09/17/make-pressdemocr…

As for what I mean by “real blogs”, I don’t have a deep, philosophical Web 2.0 babble definition. The blogs just seem clunky like the main site. I guess they both have comments, blogrolls, and recent posts lists; and John Beck’s links out of his posts. So, they meet the basics there. I’m just used to the feel and look of excellent blogging platforms like WordPress. Blogs don’t seem Internet friendly to me unless they’re using a “real” blogging platform like WordPress, etc. What platform do you guys use?

Do the PD blogs use the same site structure as the main site? Because if they do they aren’t Google search friendly. You could probably get way better traffic flow for the blogs using the WordPress platform.”

I will be reblogging excellent reader comments from the “Make PressDemocrat.com Better” conversation. Get your comment on!

If you read Pt 1, you’ll know that I’m a lifelong Press Democrat reader and interested in making PressDemocrat.com better. In the post, I talked about four areas where PD.com could make their site more Internet friendly.

This post is going to look at a more defined area on PressDemocrat.com: Comments. I’ve heard plenty grumblings (here, here and here) about the conversations in the comments section on PD.com. If you improve the comments section, it should improve the conversations. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Location, location, location
2) Timely conversation
3) Community moderation, including voting and flagging
4) Etiquette, moderation rules up front and center
5) Reader profiles (i.e. accountability)

Now with more explanation:

1) Location, location, location

On all online PD articles, you’ll find a comment section that shows the ten most recent comments the article has received. However, readers don’t leave comments on the article’s page, instead they have to click “Post a comment | View all comments” and transport over to a forum discussion page for the particular article. The forum discussion page let’s readers add they’re own comment or read all the comments beyond the ten most recent.

I think this is a huge no-no since it quickly sets a negative tone. When you put commenters in a dark, dirty section of town with no police patrol, road maintenance, etc, the dark, dirty section gets darker and dirtier.

                Site comments                                               Forum comments

2) Timely conversation

PressDemocrat.com pulls its articles from its print edition, The Press Democrat newspaper. Newspapers are timely. You have a whole bunch writers, reporters, editors, etc, working around deadlines to get content off to the press in an extremely timely manner.

Reader commenting should also be timely. What do I mean? Commenting on specific online article should be open for 1-2 weeks and than closed. This will help comments be on the same time wave-length as the news article, which, in turn, helps keep comments on-topic.

3) Community moderation (voting and flagging)

I don’t see Press Democrat writers rolling up their sleeves and participating or moderating reader comments. I’m pretty sure most of them sneer at reader comments polluting their peerless journalism.

So, how do you moderate comments so that you get smarter, more on-topic comments? Easy. Let the community moderate. All you have to do is provide readers with an up arrow and down arrow (a la Disqus commenting system) and readers can click the down arrow for off-topic/inappropriate comments and the up arrow for conversation improving comments.

Ok, but how does clicking an arrow moderate comments? Let me explain. You can set a commenting system, like Disqus, to filter out all comments with -5 points or whatever negative number you choose. This means when five people click the down arrow the comment would be filtered out. Or, you can setup Disqus to show the highest rated comments at the top of the comment thread and the lowest rated comments at the bottow of the comment thread.

Also, some commenting systems allow you to simply “flag” a comment for an official moderator to review instead of letting the community readers vote comments up or down.

4) Etiquette, moderation rules up front and center

All the big sites have to deal with comment trolls leaving hateful, spammy, and/or inappropriate comments. This is why you need to put your site’s commenting etiquette and moderation rules up front and center. It lets your community know the rules. This does two things: 1) Makes your future moderating clear and understood and 2) Empowers your reader community to self-moderate like Wikipedia (that is, if they have voting and flagging tools).

It makes it a whole lot easier to deal with angry trolls after their comment has been removed if all you have to do is point to up-front-and-center moderation rules. It’s even easier if you let community readers moderate off the same up-front-and-center moderation rules. Think about it.

5) Reader profiles (i.e. accountability)

Reader profiles tie everything together. They provide accountability by showing all comments the reader has left on articles. They allow the user to build positive commenting reputation (especially if you’re using Disqus‘ points-based user profiles).

Reader profiles can also tie other things the reader does on the Internet like their blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc, to their profile. I think this is extremely important as it adds an extra layer of accountability to a profile. So, instead of requiring info for advertising optimizing, PressDemocrat.com should ask new commenters if they want to add their Facebook or blog to their profile. Optional, of course.

This is the current required info when new commenters create a PD.com profile in all its advertising-optimizing glory:

I’m really trying to start a strong conversation here to “Make PressDemocrat.com Better” so feel free to use the Save/Share button below to share with friends, etc.

If you’d like to contact me, shoot me an email at andrew@buzzyeah.com. Or, feel free to leave a comment below (I’ll be reblogging awesome comments).