One thing I like to do is keep track of our site analytics: page views, unique vistors and such. I especially like to track the numbers of our staff blogs.

Last month I introduced a new feature here at TiW to show off the number of unique visitors those blogs receive each month. Click here to see the May 2009 stats.

I also introduced a friendly challenge to our newest staff blogger, Mareesa Nicosia, who launched her In the Biz blog in late May: If she could top the Saratoga City Desk blog within a month and put reporter Andrew J. Bernstein in his place, I'd buy her lunch.

Was she successful? Did she smite the goliath that is Andrew's blog and earn a free meal in the process? Let's turn to the numbers:

1) Andrew Bernstein's Saratoga City Desk: 5,544
2) Stan Hudy's Diary of a Mad Sportswriter: 3,072*
3) Mareesa Nicosia's In the Biz: 1,899
4) Barb Lombardo's Fresh Ink: 1,151
5) TiW: 539
5) Saratogian Sports' Extra Points: 352

Alas, Mareesa's food bill will not see a decrease anytime soon. Andrew still reigns as The Saratogian's top blogger. However, it should be noted that sportswriter Stan Hudy suspects he may emerge victorious for the month of July, as there are a number of youth sporting events he expects to live blog from. Could it be? Stay tuned.

In the spirit of continued competition (and my own amusement) I've decided to extend my challenge indefinitely: Whoever becomes The Saratogian's next top blogger gets lunch, my treat (offer not valid for Extra Points. I'm not treating the whole Sports department. Or Stan, as the case may be...).

*Speaking of Stan: He has an asterix next to his number because he's using a different analytics program. Does it make a difference? I don't know. I don't think it should, but for transparency's sake, I think it's worth noting.

I seem to have lost 29 readers from last month. I clearly won't be treating myself to lunch anytime soon.

A few weeks ago I came across a press release from an Los Angeles-based Associated Press photographer who was having a showing of images he'd snapped outside of his day job.

The show was centered around a premise I thought was most unique and summed up in the exhibit's title: "Stripped. Bare. Branimir Kvartuc and his iPhone."

From the press release:

As a professional photographer working for such outlets as the Associated Press and the Jutarnji List, the national paper of Croatia, Branimir Kvartuc had the best equipment and access to be in the right position to tell a story.

With this show, he has Stripped his resources Bare. No Credentials. No Assignment. No professional camera. Kvartuc, armed with only an iPhone camera, managed to capture landscapes, worm his way into closed-to-the-public events and delve deeply into the emotions of individuals.

Take away the large camera that shoots 12 frames per second and a tie to familiar news outlet and you are left with a photographer attempting to record a poignant moment on a two megapixel cell phone camera that takes one photo every 12 seconds.

"I never liked taking photos when I was not working." Kvartuc said. "As a professional, I usually have a credential hanging from my neck and large,somewahat intimidating cameras and lenses. It becomes very easy for the person behind the camera to feel a certain authority, a comfort level with invading someone's personal space by pointing a camera at them."

For the "Stripped. Bare." show, Kvartuc was now the one who was inimidated. He often had to ask for permission to get close enough to capture something valuable. That meant he had to start a conversation, he had to earn their trust so he could get a disarming, authentic still.

Photos from Kvartuc's exhibit can be viewed here. His blog is here. If you were planning on being out in L.A. anytime soon, though, the exhibit already ran its course.

Our various gadgets are increasingly being consolidated into one device that combine their multiple functions. Phone, photos, voice recordings, even video right in the palm of the hand, in one unit. Granted, iPhones and some BlackBerries are pricey up front, in addition to their service plans. However, I think it would be a wise thing for newsrooms to swallow the initial expense to supply such equipment for their staff so they can get creative in how they gather and report the news that matters to its costumers.

I think an exhibit like Kvartuc's illustrates some of where the "new media" road is taking us. Do I think professional photographers with expensive, top-of-the-line equipment will go the way of the dinosaurs? I certainly hope not. But it shows off what a reporter equipped with some quality, relatively inexpensive gear and some basic photography know-how could — realistically — be expected to accomplish in addtion to his/her regular duties.

"What happened on June 18?" I asked my co-workers a few minutes ago.

"Huh?" That was Andrew.

"Did anything important happen in the middle of the month?" I repeated.

I happened to be looking at the site traffic report for the month and there was a rather significant spike in the number of unique visitors for June 18: a whopping total of 9,037. By comparison, the day before we received 3,607 unique visitors for the day (which is a rough average for us). I was drawing a blank on what could have possible caused such a stir.

We quickly turned to our computers and the search feature on the site and quickly deduced it was the initial story about the 384 pounds of marijuana seized in a bust in Wilton that must have been the main attraction.

Street value of nearly 400 pounds of pot? A 251 percent
increase in daily traffic for The Saratogian.

Sure enough, a look at the most popular pages for that day proved our hunch correct.

Once again, readers of The Saratogian show they're quite passionate about drugs in their community.

I'm not a code monkey. In case there's any confusion about what I do here at The Saratogian, it's NOT to develop the Web site or all its assorted technical features from scratch.

That being said, I still get to monkey around with HTML now and then and, truth be told, it's one of the more fun aspects of the job. Back in the early days of my employment here, when we switched to a new site provider, then back to our old site provider (back to the old, but visually-revamped platform), I had to be more hands on with HTML if I wanted to insert a hyperlink, a "mail to:" link for an e-mail address or even to bold, italicize and underline. It was a great opportunity to learn/re-learn (and memorize) a few very basic HTML tags. Also somewhat time-consuming.

Now that we've switched to the current site platform, a lot of those functions are accomplished right from the content management system, which offers a rich-text-editor — akin to what you'd find in Word or other document software, or even on applications like Blogger, MySpace and Facebook — that circumvents the manual insertion of code. With a simple click or two I can bold, italicize, copy in a link, etc. Sometimes, though, I find (or create) a need to get my hands on keyboard to bang out a bit of HTML and, for whatever reason, it's always satisfying. Such was the case last week, when I got to try out a new tag and apply some oldies but goodies for what, I think, was an elegant solution.

If any young journalists or journalists-in-training are reading this: I HIGHLY recommend you learn some code. It's so easy nowadays, because it's all available online.

Back when I worked for the state, before I even entertained the thought of going to grad school to get a degree in journalism, I took a two-day training course on HTML offered to state employees (early 2004, I believe). It was very basic stuff, and at the end of day two we had all designed a lovely little Web page with a circa 1995, retro look. Still, it was enough to help me understand the basics of Web design better. It came in handy from time-to-time, particularly when I undertook a project during grad school, in which my partner and I looked at how various "J-schools" were adapting their curriculum to better prepare students working in the "new media" age.

Rather than write a report, we put our findings online, on a site we developed (though I can't claim to have done the brunt of that. My partner, who now works at the Utica Observer Dispatch, was the one that did the majority of the coding. Remember what I said about all the info necessary being available online? She learned basic Flash animation for an intro to the site).

All of that helped me in getting this job, and helped me understand what I needed to do/look for when I wanted to tweak some text, clean up some formatting, have a link open in a new browser or gerry-rig an AP feed on other pages of the site.

Anyhow, the new tag I tried (and have been using here and there since) is the page jump tag. It's the perfect solution for directing people to a schedule, ticket prices or pertinent information included at the end of an article online (the sort of stuff that we'd publish in print as an "If You Go" box or a small sidebar) that they might miss if they decide not to read the entire article. See recent examples in the cover story from the debut issue of The Scene and a preview of the upcoming Secret Gardens tour.

The elegant solution I referred to earlier was a sidebar that ran with that article from The Scene linked above. It's about a local cover band called Gravity, and one element of the package in print was a bio about each of the four band members. Rather than add the text at the bottom of the main article (as I did with the schedule), I opted to get creative and plug the bios into the caption. All it required was some basic HTML tags to bold and insert the appropriate breaks in the text. I was rather pleased with the results. It had never occurred to me to utilize the photo captions in such a way, but it worked perfectly.

In the last few months I've also been using captions to refer people to view more images in the appropriate online photo album, most extensively with sports stories. (See an example from today's coverage of the Saratoga Phillies doubleheader. The caption provides a hyperlink to the "Saratoga Phillies - 2009" album.) Conversely, I also insert hyperlinks to the corresponding article in each picture's caption in the online albums (when I have the time. This is still a bit inconsistent on my part).

I know none of this is technically jaw-dropping, particularly for the hardcore programmers out there. There's plenty more I could learn, and I'd like to be more proactive about studying up; Sometimes I put the effort in only when I find it necessary, though. But it's nuts-and-bolts kind of stuff that comes in really handy in my position. It's no secret that media is evolving, increasingly accessed through electronic means. It seems to me the vast majority of people today only care that their stuff works; they're not concerned with HOW it works. So a little technical know-how, no matter how minimal, could be enough of a leg-up in an increasingly competitive field. It applies to more than just HTML.

From our reporter, Emily Donohue, on the news that the N.Y. Senate went into a recess from their special session today because the two factions were talking over each other (after the Dems temporarily locked the Republicans, press and others out earlier in the afternoon):

"Lock them all in that chamber and burn the place down so we can start over. I'll bring the marshmallows."

Sounds good.

When I get in each morning, I generally focus so much on the tasks at hand that I don't immediately go out for the competitors' newspapers in the drop box. As a result, sometimes those papers pile up inside. That was the case this morning (looks like no one got them over the weekend, and I was off yesterday).

It was also the case last Tuesday, June 16:

"We're gonna need a bigger boat."

Postal service to the rescue.

So too, two days later on Thursday, after I forgot to get the papers on Wednesday. Two days' worth of the competition is an easier load than four, though. There they are, stacked neatly atop the drop box.


And what's that inside the green receptacle? A discarded carton of smokes, naturally. Also a notice for a Saratoga County Pamona Grange meeting. That already happened. Oh, and a segment of a twig.


At the bottom of today's jumble of newsprint and protective plastic bags? A discarded wrapper from a Willy Wonka Nerd Rope candy (Bite it! Roll it! Twist it! Pull it!). And that same piece of twig.

Nerds rope? Apparently not named after
my attempts to climb the rope in
high school gym class.

I generally don't respond to comments left under articles, even when they really rile me up. But I feel compelled to weigh in on two of the comments left under the article "Drug dealer next door?"

First, Horatio: C'mon, man. What do you think we're going to do when a story like this comes in, kick around the following dialogue: "Well, you know, some people out there, like that anonymous blogger, think pot should be legal and won't think this is a news story. Let's not cover this as a sign of solidarity for all our readers who support legalizing marijauna. Besides, Mr. Canori must have been a good guy because he mowed his lawn and didn't disturb his neighbors — most of whom probably make their means WITHOUT breaking the law so flagrantly — with that loud rock 'n' roll music and bottle rockets the kids like so much."

You raise valid points, and the cost to taxpayers is certainly worth looking into, but this bust was going to cost taxpayers whether it happened in Wilton, NY, Walton, NY or even Wasilla, Alaska. As to whether the suspects in the case were doing anything else illegal: I suspect further investigation will turn that up, and we'll be sure to report it. But we're not the judicial branch of the government and aren't here to offer verdicts.

If you feel so strongly about it (which you seemingly do) I suggest you stop wasting your time banging out specious tirades at the hometown news Web site and apply it toward petitioning the government to change the laws (if you haven't already). Because until such time as carting around over 200 pounds of marijuana IS perfectly legal, we're going to report on a bust like this.

Law enforcement was doing their job, we're doing ours. Once again, another invitation: If you want to come out of the shadows and lend your expertise, you know where the office is located.

Second, CM: Drugs finance terrorism in places other than Afghanistan. A lot of ink and server space has been devoted to stories in recent months about the growing influence of Mexican drug cartels deep inside America. Don't think Mexican drug cartels equate terror? Talk to some of the citizens of that nation.

If you think the legalization of marijuana would help stem that type of violence, you could be right. Again, take it up with the appropriate law-making bodies (if you haven't already).

Rant over. Thanks for obliging. On to sillier things later today(?): Another edition of "Inside the Saratogian drop box."