Greetings from NAA! Welcome back to the Digital Edge blog. This Online Publishing Update* is meant to help you catch up, as many people have been on vacation this past week. The regular (e-mail) OPU will return Wednesday, Jan. 2. We hope your holiday season has been happy and restful! Have a great New Year! Onto the headlines...

It's been a busy week here at NAA, and we're ending on a high note: We've released the latest (and last of this year) report from the Digital Edge called "Campaigning for Ads."

The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire state primary are just weeks away, and Super Tuesday is Feb. 5. Before then, newspapers should really work to align their sales forces around political advertising -- especially on the newspaper's Web site.

Political spending online may double or triple with each coming election cycle. But some analysts are unsure whether newspapers are doing enough to sell their Web sites as potential places for candidates to advertise. The report gives insight from newspaper executives and political analysts on how to maximize political campaign spending on newspaper Web sites.

The blog will go on hiatus through the end of the year, with the sole exception of the Online Publishing Update for Dec. 28, which will be published here. Happy New Year (and Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating this weekend)!

 - Beth Lawton

This year brought a record number of entries to the Digital Edge Awards (“The Edgies”), which are now part of the NAA Media Innovation Awards. The MedIAs emphasize growing strategy and innovation across newspaper media, especially in the areas of audience and revenue. The Digital Edge categories specifically honor newspapers’ best online news, interactive communication and advertising programs.

A growing number of newspapers are dabbling in social networking – allowing users to create blogs, post photos and even create profile pages. As newspaper Web sites begin adding social networking features, publishers are taking more than a passing interest in sites like Facebook. Read about what newspapers have learned through experimenting with social networking in this new report.  (Continue reading to download the report.)  

I’ve been light on the posting this week because we’re trying to get out a new Digital Edge report out on newspaper Web sites incorporating social media elements (we’ll release it today or Monday), another D.E. report on political advertising on newspaper Web sites, we’re preparing to announce the Digital Edge Award finalists early next week! And… and… But, I wanted to point out a few things that are worth checking out on a coffee break.

The recent death of Washington Redskins’ team member Sean Taylor drew myriad comments to The Washington Post and Miami Herald Web sites. Not all of the comments were polite.

From today’s Poynter centerpiece article, “When Comments Cross the Line”:

WashingtonPost.com Interactivity and Communities Editor Hal Straus said the Taylor story didn't elicit an unusual number of problematic comments, but feedback at MiamiHerald.com turned ugly enough on the Friday after the shooting that editors suspended feedback on Taylor stories into the next day.

"There is certainly value in the comments," said Casey Frank, day news editor for MiamiHerald.com. "It's just sad and frustrating that so many of them are out of bounds."

It’s all too common: A newspaper Web site opens stories for comments for the public, and some readers post rude, crude, racist, threatening or otherwise inappropriate comments. It’s too bad, but it’s also the reality of opening your newspaper Web site.

There’s no one magic solution for newspapers that open the site for comments. Many Web sites have a feature allowing readers to let editors know about offensive comments so the Web editors can remove the post. Other newspapers – most recently The New York Times – moderate comments before they ever appear online, thereby removing most risk of offending readers.

Many newspaper editors have agreed, however, that the benefits of opening the site to comments outweigh the drawbacks. Often, comments boost page views as readers return to articles repeatedly to see what others have written. Some newspapers have reported receiving article ideas or tips through the comments. With those benefits in mind, the following are articles from NAA and other sources packed with lessons-learned and advice from newsroom editors who have dealt with this.

Online Community at the Racine Journal Times (NAA)
Blogs at the Spokesman-Review (NAA)
IndyMoms.com Draws Busy Parents with Discussions, Niche Content (NAA)

Libel and User-Generated Content (CNet and the Citizen Media Law Project) 
Civil Discourse, Meet the Internet (The New York Times) 
Raising the Level of Online Conversation (The News & Observer)
How Much Should You Moderate Comments? It Depends… (MediaShift)

SacBee Changes Commenting Requirements (The Digital Edge)
Bloggers' Code of Conduct: Wikia's Wales, O'Reilly Post Blog Ethics Wiki (The Digital Edge)

This week, we’ll release the latest Digital Edge report, “Newspapers as Networks: Redesigning Around Social Media.” The report, by Mark Toner, focuses on the results of recent experiments in social media, including commenting and sharing, by newspaper Web sites.

I just wanted to call some attention to this, since it may pertain to the searchability of a lot of newspaper Web sites. (Disclosure: My employer, the Newspaper Association of America, is a member/supporter of ACAP.) ACAP version 1.0, a strategically-based technology solution to the controversy over what mainstream media content search engines can index, launched at the end of November. The people behind ACAP are asking newspaper and other media Web sites to install and implement it.  

A few really good pieces (actually, they're all good -- but especially the digital media ones) in PRESSTIME Magazine this month. The December issue should have already arrived in your mailboxes at the office or at home, but here are links and excerpts, anyway.

Building a Better Newspaper Web Site, by Guest Editor Rob Curley, WPNI
When I started working at Morris DigitalWorks in 1998, my wife Betsy bought her first personal computer—a Mac clamshell laptop. I now watch how she uses her computer because I love to see how "regular people" use the Web. You don't even want to know how many ideas have come to me after watching my family members use their computers.  Continue reading...

20 Under 40 Profiles
This year's crop of 20 newspaper stars (under the age of 40) includes at least eight people whose position deal directly with digital media and/or audience growth and development. Continue reading...

(Re)Starting from Scratch, by Mark Toner
Remember 1997? A decade ago, publishers could breathe a well-earned sigh of relief. After much hand wringing, more than half of U.S. dailies had launched Web sites, successfully extending the newspaper franchise into the exploding online world. Flash forward a decade and nimble upstarts have chiseled away at what was once seen as a core advantage—that very same local franchise. The advice from one of those upstarts? Stop whining.  Continue reading...

Thanks to Amy Gahran (who thanks Silicon Alley Insider) for pointing out this worthwhile time waster:

Here Comes Another Bubble, by The Richter Scales (via YouTube).

Since the theme of this blog last week was search while I attended the ILM:07 conference (see posts from Wednesday and Thursday), I thought I'd keep it going one more day with this: Aaron Goldman posted some of his rules for URLs on his MediaPost blog.