You can expect our site to continue to evolve well after the new version of Poynter Online launches. We want to share these enhancements with you here first in Poynter labs, a section that highlights experimental Poynter Online features.
We're dedicated to better understanding innovative online technologies and their uses in journalism. Currently in the left rail of this page, we feature Poynter-related applications that exist outside of Poynter Online. For example, in this section you can find links to our Facebook groups, del.icio.us page, RSS widgets, and a collection of aggregated journalism blogs --just to name a few.
This idea isn't new. Sites such as
Digg and
Google have labs for their users to test drive new features. In fact, these sites are partially our inspiration for our new section.
We're hoping Poynterevolution introduces you to useful technologies. Users will be able to use blog entries to discuss each feature -- sharing how they've implemented it on their site, examples of best practices, and/or concerns they have about using the given technology journalistically.
One purpose of the blog is to help you find ways to implement these features on your site. We'll be trying to do the same thing. We want to learn about how you are using the innovations we feature in this section. Which features appeal to journalists? Which do you find challenging to use? Those features that many find worthwhile could end up on Poynter Online.
Developing the features on Poynterevolution will be a collaborative effort. We hope to work with users to improve features before incorporating them into Poynter Online, ensuring they will be quality, engaging additions to the interactive Poynter experience.
Over the next several weeks, we will posting blog entries describing what we're doing with various Web sites.
Next week, we'll introduce you to del.icio.us/poynter.
