Marketwatch: Covering baseball in a new world of blogs

Speaking of sports and blogs....

These Are The People in Your Neighborhood

Interesting audience overview pages over at IBS, which operates a multitude of television Web sites around the country, including many within our online competitive landscape:

• TheWMURChannel.com in Manchester, NH
• WMTW.com in Portland, ME
• TheBostonChannel.com
• TurnTo10.com in Providence, RI/New Bedford
• NBC30.com in Hartford, CT
• TheChamplainChannel.com in Plattsburgh/Burlington, VT
• WNBC.com in New York City
  
• TheWGALChannel.com in Lancaster, PA
• TheKSBWChannel.com in Monterey, CA
• TheKCRAChannel.com and WB58tv.com (soon to be CW58tv?) in Sacramento
  
• KTVU.com and NCB11.com in San Francisco
• AccessHollywood.com (who knew!?)
  

Back on the IBS site, click through the various audience categories. In particular, I liked the slice from the Working Women page:

Pull quote: "I like to feel more connected with the outside world when I’m at work."

Backed up by:

• 86% are white-collar professionals
• 38% are college graduates
• 76% are 25-54
• 44% make more than $75,000 in household income
• 23% spend $150+/week on groceries

Incidentally, IBS reported this week that their traffic grew 29% in December compared to the same month in 2004. I think their sites are weaker than many in terms of usability and content presentation, but clearly they are doing something right. Perhaps the key for them is understanding their audience as well as they do.

Lost Remote: The web is cool again! A checklist

MUST read the to-do list Liz Foreman posted today at Lost Remote. It is from a TV point of view, but the concepts are universal. It's a great blueprint for where to start in our newsrooms as we tackle re-engineering our approach to the Web in our daily work lives.

The Austin Chronicle: Snoring Out Loud

First spied on JD Lasica's New Media Musings. Bit of a lengthy piece on the blogging efforts by the Austin American-Stateman, but worth the read to the end. Sure, it's hip, edgy alt-weekly ranting on traditional daily. But after beating up the daily Statesman, the alt-weekly Chronicle does outline what is working and why at the daily -- albeit on a smaller scale than originally intended.

Echoes a lot of the sentiments you'll hear us talk about when discussing successful blogging: Blogs must be updated frequently, inspire or solicit reader reactions, AND have a personality.

One thing I noticed: The Chronicle does not appear to have blogs. You would think an alt-weekly would. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe their writers are blogging elsewhere....