E-Media Tidbits

After reading this (weak, I thought) Wired News article about Craigslist being the savior of New York City during the transit strike, I took a look last night. So what? There were lots of posts in the "rideshare" section, and probably more than usual in the housing section, with various options for people who wanted to share a place or whatever. But there was no centralized "NYC transit item," a la after Katrina; no more focused service to make it easy for users to find what they needed; nothing more than the usual Craigslist, essentially. What about the vaunted Craigslist community tools? Not here, or at least not specific to the situation.

So, next, I looked to the NYTimes.com site. Great coverage, but if there were any interactive tools to help people navigate the strike, find rides, share apartments, whatever, I didn't find them readily.

On to the NYPost.com. Phooey. Its own coverage was almost 18 hours old when I looked yesterday evening, although it had posted an Associated Press article from late in the day about a fine against the transit workers' union. It had a static four-page "transit strike survival guide," but it was a PDF from the print edition. Good grief. They don't get it at all.

The NYDailyNews.com site had lots of articles about the strike stacked up, but again, no obvious interactive tools for people to use to plan their commute, find rides to share -- anything that would take this from being newspaper shovelware into the realm of a true Web tool.

At Newsday.com, there was a winner. Not a giant winner, sadly -- the page was still too busy and the tools still seeming to be an afterthought. And the transit strike update blog hadn't been updated in more than seven hours. But at least there was a "ride share" section, with ride-share information from 10 communities covering much of Long Island (Newsday's circulation area). Unfortunately, there were only two posts on the whole section when I checked at about 10 p.m., including this one: "2 passengers needed inbound to NYC upper east side 12/21 AM. Leaving Commack/Huntington area 9 AM. must be in town by 11:30 AM."

Maybe if the strike drags on for a few days, the online "newspapers" (beyond Newsday's website) will become online tools, complementing the newspaper rather than just regurgitating (and updating) it.