Matt Sokoloff

OK...so we're still putting the furniture together.

This is part of the note I will be sending out this week.

As you already may have heard, I am leaving my position at Tribune Interactive. I will be starting a new position at an interactive startup company in Orlando. The focus will be on helping online publishers and marketers engage consumers of interest across the leading web destinations. I'm excited to be able to build upon everything that I have learned at Tribune and continue to work with online publishers to help increase revenue so that companies like Tribune can continue to publish great websites and content.

I have enjoyed my time at Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel. I appreciate having had the opportunity to work with everyone. I have learned so much from each person that I've come in contact with on my various projects. From training the Orlando newsroom on video to redesigning the eight Tribune newspaper websites, I have been able to meet and interact with so many amazing people at our company. 

I will be posting more about the new company here on my blog. If we aren't already, make sure we connect on Linkedin and Twitter so we can stay in touch.

I guess they needed to make room for the gas pump?

UPDATE: You can see the full video here: http://bit.ly/9EwsMQ

It's with great pain that I write this but...I truly don't think Google should pick Orlando as the city to instal their uber-high-speed internet. We're just not taking advantage of what's already out there.

The city thinks that using Google Apps means that we are making full use of Google technologies and other technologies. Yes the city pays for Google Apps as their e-mail provider but how about all the free ways the city could use google to make the city and city services more accessible to everyone. This includes making use of Google Maps, YouTube, Google Topics, etc. to provide resources to the citizens of Orlando.

One area with a lot of potential that almost 500 cities are taking advantage of is Google Transit. Orlando/Lynx is yet to sync the bus routes and schedules to google maps. The process is laid out here and it's free. I'm sure we are paying a lot of money for the proprietary scheduler but this is free promotion. Every time someone maps directions on google maps or their iPhone they can hit "By Public Transportation" and get the next bus route. You can't expect people to make use of city services if they can't even find out about them.

And then just take a look at the city website. The city does very little to actually provide a usable online website. The city redesigned the site 2.5 years ago but didn't change much in the way they help users find what they are looking for. Browse to more then the top level pages and you'll find ample disconnected pages, outdated pages and broken links. Compare that to some other city websites that are easy to navigate and provide actual useful information and services that are kept up to date.

It's also worth pointing out that one of the main reasons that Google is going to provide this super-high-speed internet access is because they feel that current offerings are not fast enough and not robust enough. Well that's one area where Orlando might win out. Ask anyone who's not affiliated with Bright House and knows a thing or two about technology and they'll tell you that the speeds Bright House provides tend to be well below average...and let's not even talk about pricing. But has the city every talked about alternatives or pushed for competition?

None of these improvements require Google to launch high-speed internet in Orlando it just requires a forward thinking city government. We'll have to see if ours can at least catch up to so many other cities (many smaller than ours). 

Oh and btw if we get the Google high-speed internet I'll be the first to sign up!

UPDATE: I've since been reminded that Mayor "Google" Buddy Dyer was the same guy who pushed against the WiFi cloud in Orlando.

If TV websites, especially morning show sites, want to be successfull they should focus more on real time conversations then on posting clips after they air on their show. 

Tomorrow morning compare these two page:

• Good Morning America's home page - http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/
• GMA Anchor/Correspondents Twitter feeds - http://twitter.com/GMA/anchors-correspondents

The GMA home page is stale and focuses on posting news clips after they air. The Twitter page focuses on what's happening in real time and a quick way for me to get my news, see conversations about the news and engage the GMA folks in that conversations.

If the GMA brand is about getting the mornings news with a little chit chat and entertainment then why not just embed a GMA twitter feed as the main page...especially in the morning.

This became very clear to me this morning...

As I was watching Good Morning America they teased to their website that "To find a list of all the companies that the FDA sent a warning letter to go to ABCNews.com." Well I jumped on their site only to find out that the "Mentioned on Air" page for GMA hadn't been updated in three days. 

I did what any good user would do...I sent a tweet to @gma and @sampchampion. Within minutes I had a tweet back from Sam Champion (make that two tweets back) despite the fact that the show was still live and he was jumping between hits. Still no response from the web staff nor is the site updated with the link.

I think GMA and ABC should get over being a traditional news site that just publishes the same stories that are available everywhere and instead do what they do on TV, become part of my morning. Create a twitter feed similar to what you can find on some business website like this one. If you want to create brands or things that are easy to find...create hash tags (e.g. #SeenonGMA, #JustOneThing, or #GMAPolitics).

Anyone know of any web publishers that are doing anything similar?

UPDATE: The stories were posted online about an hour after this was published. GMA was already off the air for the east coast.