E-Media Tidbits

Washingtonpost.com has made a good catch. It's hired Adrian Holovaty as "editor, editorial innovations," and he'll start September 6. This is a significant job, because it basically puts Holovaty, a talented young developer-journalist, in the role of "mad scientist" for the award-winning news website. He'll be charged with coming up with new ideas for site features, implementing things quickly, and working on special projects.

I think that's a job position that more news websites should have -- someone with serious tech skills charged with leading innovation and experimenting.

Holovaty was lead developer for the Lawrence Journal-World (Kansas), working under Rob Curley. The Lawrence team is among the most innovative in the online newspaper industry, and has won many new-media industry awards. Curley recently left Lawrence to work for E.W. Scripps in Naples, Florida. Now Holovaty is departing.

Holovaty also is the man behind ChicagoCrime.org, an innovative site linking local crime databases to Google Maps.

Just as with his job as lead developer for Lawrence, Holovaty will work from his home in Chicago.