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Al's Morning Meeting

Home > Reporting, Writing & Editing > Al's Morning Meeting
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Al Tompkins
Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.
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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'


*1. "Wired" explains how to figure out who is behind a Twitter page.

2. Check out FarmVille, Facebook's fastest growing application.

3. Before any health care reform vote, watch Steve Kroft's "60 Minutes Story" on the $60 billion in Medicare fraud that poisons the system each year.

4. Slate reported that some companies under criminal investigation still received stimulus money.

*5. USA Today reporters Brad Heath and Blake Morrison, WNYC's Radio Rookies and others won Casey Medals for their coverage of children. Watch this video of Heath and Morrison talking about their 8-month investigation of toxic air outside America's schools.

6. The Washington Post reveals how Washington, D.C., which has the nation's highest rate of AIDS cases, wasted millions of dollars on AIDS care.

7. The Association of Independents in Radio has provided a one-stop shopping page for people trying to sell freelance radio stories.

8. Sidewalks are in such bad shape in some cash-strapped towns that people who use wheelchairs are having to ride along the street instead.

*9. There's a new wearable HD camera for sports and action video that costs less than $350. Watch this sample video.

*10. The Tennessean's "Life on Hold" project looks at the lives of 20-year-olds trying to "figure it all out." The project features some really nice multimedia.

11. What words do you use that your readers don't understand? The New York Times tracks the words that its readers look up.

12. Read Beth Macy's first-person account about her Roanoke Times' project, "Age of Uncertainty." The series is about her community's aging senior citizens and the people who care for them.

All of my Diggin' sites are saved on Poynter's del.icio.us page.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but relies on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.


Online Retailers Plan 'Free Shipping Day'
Posted by Al Tompkins at 4:49 PM on Nov. 12, 2009
Researchers say online sales are already set to grow this holiday shopping season, and a new plan could push sales even higher. More than 200 big online retailers -- including American Eagle, Eddie Bauer, Nordstrom and FAO Schwarz -- have banded together to create a "Free Shipping Day" on Dec. 17.

Consumers who place an order that day can get free shipping and guaranteed delivery before Christmas. FreeShippingDay.com said the day could become as big of a shopping holiday as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It provided this background:

"In 2007 online shopping peaked on December 10th, fifteen days before Christmas. Seeing this as a bad thing for online shopping, Luke Knowles of the popular money-saving website FreeShipping.org had the idea to create a day late in December when merchants would offer free shipping to shoppers with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. He hoped that over time this would convince shoppers that they can shop later into December and have their orders arrive in time for the big day, thus benefiting all involved with online shopping. The first annual Free Shipping Day was Thursday, December 18, 2008."


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