Lincolnite

Could it be true? Could The Option, a Downtown housing project two years in the making, finally be on its way? Originally proposed to include 40 condos, the project now features 13 row houses on a vacant lot at 7th and R just south of the Downtown Post Office. The rate at which the units sell -- four are sold already -- will be interesting to observe.

Would you like to see JournalStar.com provide RSS feeds? I have written a letter I plan to send in:

Dear Editors, We want to thank the Lincoln Journal Star for giving JournalStar.com a long-overdue overhaul. The site is more attractive, easier to use, and filled with more content than before. We especially want to thank you for not following in the footsteps of a certain Omaha newspaper’s website, which requires a ridiculous online registration process (and a circumvention of that process by those of us who are turned off by it) in order to read articles. We wish to congratulate Online Editor Steve Smith and his crew for a job well done. The Journal Star has done a good job trying to maintain, or even increase, its relevance through blogs, podcasts, and the like, so it is odd that JournalStar.com still, even after its facelift, lacks RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. RSS is a simple technology that would allow the Journal Star to push its content to new audiences at virtually zero cost. The fear, common among the "old media", is loss of site visits and ad revenue. That fear is unfounded and, in our opinion, completely backwards. Indeed, RSS feeds will increase the size and diversity of your readership. Even simple feeds with headlines and short summaries would expose your content to a wider audience. The majority of publishers agree with us: 76 of the nation’s top 100 newspapers offer RSS feeds (Link). Providing RSS feeds is a win-win situation. Your readers win yet another way to access your content, you win a wider audience with almost zero extra resources. It really is that simple.

If you would like to help edit the letter, or if you want to co-sign it, please hop on over to the forums to join in the discussion.

Mr. T took at look at JournalStar.com just a few minutes ago and ran across this odd headline in the sports section. Just a little cynical, don't you think?

Have you heard the obnoxious, over-the-top, everybody-freak-out radio ad from Jon Bruning's office on the topic of child predators? It's awful. The ad breathlessly declares that your children are threatened by child-raping sickos thousands (sic) of times every day. It's so over the top that until Bruning himself started speaking, I was convinced it was some sort of morning show prank. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing amusing about sexual predators, and parents and kids do need to be aware of the dangers. But whipping out your best Chicken Little impression definitely isn't the best way to spread the word. Besides, the threat from random strangers on the web is dramatically overstated. Most sex crimes are committed by family members or acquaintances of the victim. The biggest threat to children isn't some faceless freak living in his mom's basement. But then, it's easier to think that way than to consider the possibility that an uncle, a babysitter, or *gulp* a parent could be the culprit. I couldn't find the radio ad on the AG's website -- dear Lord that is an awful website! -- but I did find these two videos. The videos aren't as panic-laden as the radio ad, but they both fall into the "stereotypical freaky dude in his mom's basement" trap.

I opened the paper this morning, and I thought, "Hey, I know that guy!" Don't let it be said that my games aren't educational!

I can live with the new digital billboard rules, which allow slightly brighter signs than previously proposed, but no animation. The rules are more restrictive than I would have allowed, but not so restrictive as to completely defeat the billboards' purpose. On a related note, the City Council legitimized Anderson Ford's six year-old illegal sign. That's a fair outcome, since the city screwed up by giving Anderson a permit for the sign in the first place.

If you haven't already noticed, JournalStar.com is sportin' a new look today. The new design is much more like what one expects a news portal to be. It doesn't break any new ground from a website design perspective, but that's a good thing. A site like JournalStar.com needs to cater to its audience's expectations about how a news site should work. I had the pleasure of getting a sneak peak at JournalStar.com over the weekend, thanks to Online Editor Steve Smith. I gave Steve a variety of feedback on the new site. Here are some of the things I said. General items -- The interface is clean and simple. The columnar/modular approach makes the site feel more like a news site than the old design. The simple color scheme is consistently applied, with plenty of white space. Overall, it's a nice, conservative look. Unfortunately, parts of the site "break" when viewed without advertisements. (I browse primarily with Firefox and the AdBlock extension.) RSS -- Many of you want to know the story on this, so I may as well break it to you now: JournalStar.com is staying away from RSS for now. I won't quote Steve Smith on the matter (because I didn't ask his permission to quote his e-mail), but I can say that RSS is on the radar. It didn't make the site (for now) because of the fear that it will take away from page views. In other words: ad revenue is affected. I know, I know, you don't care. You just want your RSS. So do I. Let's do something about it: go on over to this thread in the forum and help me write a letter to the editor. When it is finished, I will send it to the Journal Star. Navigation -- The main menu at the top of each page is mostly well organized, but many of the items in the submenu under "Home" don't make sense. (Who would look under "Home" for Celebrate Nebraska?) There is an annoying lag between the time you mouseover a menu item and when its respective submenu displays, although it's probably there to prevent the menu from changing unexpectedly on accidental mouseovers. Homepage -- Having the weather and search at the top is nice. The homepage is a little busy, but there a lot of content needs to be squeezed into a small amount of space. It took me a while to figure out what the B* images are supposed to represent. (They represent connections to various LJS blogs.) Section pages -- Section pages are the main section (Sports, News) collector pages. They are laid out similarly to the homepage, which is nice for consistency's sake. I'm not a fan of the blue header image at the top of the section pages, nor am I crazy about the "central" in "News Central". Subsection pages -- These are pages like Local under News. They are mostly just lists of articles, with links to related information. They are simple and bland, which is probably the best way to do them. Article pages -- The article pages are structured so that the line length doesn't get too long. That's good for readability. The text size widget is kind of cool, but it would be more useful if it remembered your setting from page to page. Comments on the old site were ordered newest to oldest; I hope they change that for this version. Subsites -- JournalStar.com is filled with subsites, like Ground Zero Online and The 402. Unfortunately, most (all?) of those subsites currently have their own drastically different looks. I would really like to see those subsites brought under the site's new design. Their look should be customized, of course, but within the confines of the new design. Broken -- Portions of the site are broken or missing right now. Watch your step as you navigate the site. The Ugly -- I hate it when websites open pop-ups or new windows, especially when I'm not told that that's what is going to happen. JournalStar.com is guilty of the crime in several places throughout the site. It's especially irksome because the annoying behavior doesn't serve any useful purpose. Also, several parts of the site don't work at all if the user doesn't have JavaScript turned on. That doesn't apply to most users, but it does apply to one very important group: individuals using assistive technologies like screen readers for the visually impaired. That is not acceptable. I'm not saying that because I'm on some sort of political correctness crusade; I'm saying it because the courts have said it isn't acceptable. The courts are gradually expanding the group of websites that must accommodate persons with disabilities, and in my opinion JournalStar.com is either within or very nearly within that group. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.) Cover your butts, LJS. Overall -- Overall I think the new site works. It has a nicer look, it is better organized, and best of all, the Journal Star didn't go with the Omaha Weird Herald's stupid subscription format. It has a couple hiccups, but hopefully those will be fixed with time. Congratulations Steve Smith and company, you did well.

Today's Friday Five features five other things John Camp could have won had he decided to go for it:

1. John Camp could have won the Tour de France, but he decided to allow his good friend Lance Armstrong give it a shot, since Lance's post-cancer comeback made a nice story for the media.
2. Camp could have won the National Spelling Bee, but he decided it was "a kids' activity".
3. Camp was up for the Heisman, but he bowed out after some kid whined that he would "go back to Omaha and tell on you to my mom!"
4. Camp could have had Tom Cruise as a mate, but the Scientology weirded him out. Camp suggested Tom go with his second best option, Katie Holmes, instead.
5. John Camp could kick Chuck Norris's ass any day of the week, but Camp allows Norris to stay around because "it's funny watching people fawn over such a nancy boy".

Look for countdown crosswalk signals to be installed at every crosswalk downtown this week. In my experience the countdown signals help pedestrians make better choices about which flashing Don't Walk signals to heed and which to ignore. The new signals cost $200,000.

Yeah, yeah, the headline is tired. But what better way to (probably) welcome Verizon to town than with the company's catchy-but-worn-out advertising phrase. According to the Journal Star's "sources familiar with the project", Verizon plans to build a call center in the tech park in northwest Lincoln. The call center would host some 800 jobs with starting salaries in the mid- to upper-20 thousand range. It's not Intel, but it's a good load of decent jobs. Welcome to town, folks!

Never mess with a police chief's wife. Even if he's on vacation.

After a year in the local blogosphere, Swoof has closed Eatin' in Lincoln. Today I reluctantly removed it from the blogroll. Note that Eatin' in Lincoln didn't close due to lack of interest. In fact, its closing leaves a bit of a void in Lincoln food blogging. The blogosphere abhors a vacuum, so I would like to do my part to help fill the gap. If anybody out there is interested in giving a new Lincoln food blog a try, I would be happy to have you here at Lincolnite. If you think, "Hey, I could do that!", .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Maybe include a couple quick examples of how you write or topics you would blog about. Nothing fancy or lengthy, just enough that I can get a sense of your style. I don't really care if you are 14 or 84, a seasoned blogger or a web newbie, an individual or a tag team of a few friends who all like food. I just want to find somebody who meshes with the Lincolnite concept. And if somebody fills the hole with their own site before I find somebody for here at Lincolnite, fantastic. I just want to make sure the topic gets covered.

Apparently JournalStar.com is getting a makeover on Monday. Thank goodness. The screen shots (you can see ads for the new website in the paper version) look like some effort was put into the redesign. I just hope the designers remember that usability is the current site's biggest weakness, not aesthetics. Look for a review of the new site next week.

One of the most interesting pieces in today's Journal Star was buried in Deena Winter's column. It is notable enough that I will quote the section in full:

Arena proponents ought to pay attention to what’s happening up in the Big O. The Omaha World-Herald recently reported the city-owned Hilton Omaha isn't generating the kind of revenue projected. Also, the city will likely have to tap reserves to make a bond payment on the hotel, and convention bookings are expected to be down next year. Nevertheless, that city's convention and visitors bureau is pressuring the city to expand the Hilton to attract bigger conventions. The World-Herald reported Omaha has struggled to attract large national and regional conventions -- conventions Lincoln hopes to attract, too. Difference is, Lincoln would prefer to get a private investor to build a new convention center and hotel, as a mayoral task force has recommended. That way, the city wouldn't be on the hook for their performance. However, the city could be on the hook for incentives it offers a developer, like free land.

The Qwest Center is a nice addition to Omaha. But it has lots and lots of problems. If we are going to build our own arena and convention center here, we must make sure we learn from all of them. One example comes from Ken Hambleton:

[UNO]'s Division I hockey team was stuck in a high-cost, long-term lease with Qwest Center Omaha. After years of selling out Civic Auditorium, interest seemed to wane when fans were able to find plenty of room in the new arena.

Lesson: Don't overbuild. Crowds beget crowds; empty seats beget empty seats.

Jon Camp won't run for Mayor in this spring's election. Instead, he will run for re-election to the City Council, and he will continue to focus on his business interests. I'm certain it was a difficult decision for him. What bugs me, though, is how arrogant he comes off as a result of the announcement. He said, for example, "Quite frankly, I know that I could've been elected." I don't like those sorts of pronouncements. Can you imagine if Colleen Seng were to say, "I have decided not to run for re-election, but quite frankly, I know I could've beaten any opponent"? It's tacky. More appropriate would have been to just bow out quietly, talk about how he is keeping the door open for 2011, and maybe offer a little support for Ken Svoboda. Update 11/30/2006: Neal shoots, he scores!