Last night brought the festival to a close, but we're not quite done yet. Our hit-counter actually went up a bit this morning, and the e-mails continue to arrive:
"And my finale to you all is - NICE JOB in keeping on the Spoleto Blog. Maybe next year you could incorporate some photo contests?
(I sent some photos but may be too late for your website. And the booms make some of the coolest photos!)
"Thanks, Gazie Nagle"
Thank you, Gazie. I'll put some of the others up over in the Spoleto Scene album. In the meantime, Gazie's e-mail addresses the point that's much on our minds here: What did we accomplish? Was it worth it? Did it add anything to the festival experience?
Beyond that, what should Spoletoblog be? Should it expand its scope, or narrow it down to a sharper focus?
Since May 21, we've filed more than 100 posts on the festivals here (the total, not counting this post, is 126 since May 5). That's a lot of words, and, through the magic of hypertext links, those words connected readers to all sorts of related information. We've published photographs, sketches and small audio files. We've published extended reviews and chatty social gossip. We've brought out debate in ways that print publications sometimes struggle to match.
My personal belief is that web logs like this one will become ubiquitous as news organizations grasp the concept of using multiple mediums to give more complete coverage. Like a hologram, the results will be far more three-dimensional than a picture taken from only one perspective. That makes this an exciting time, not unlike the early days of television news, when radio and newspaper journalists worked to invent a new medium from scratch.
The feedback on Spoletoblog has been excellent so far, but it fails to address my greatest disappointment: Despite collecting more than 10,000 "solid" hits over the run of the festival, the blog generated far fewer comments than I hoped that it would. We've discussed this a bit in-house, but I'd love to hear from anyone who has a thought on this: Was it too confusing? Were the topics too intimidating? Did you just not have the time... or in some cases, the computer access?
In my mind, the perfect Spoletoblog would include things you couldn't find anywhere else: news, conversation, opinion. It would cover things in new ways, using tools that other mediums cannot use.
But it would also be a medium for the people, concentrating more on bringing its audience into the conversation than on dominating that conversation.
So, please tell us: What Do You Think?
-- daniel conover
(p.s.: I'll be going on vacation after today, so e-mails sent to my address may go unopened for a couple of weeks. Use the comment function below rather than private e-mails to express your thoughts).
Photos by Gazie Nagle
Recent Comments