COMPUSCHMOOZE
Voice leaps into the future with new website
STEVEN LUBETKIN

The most exciting development in the Jewish web world this month is happening right here at the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey. We've launched a newly redesigned website, with a new web address - www.jewishvoicesnj.org.

The site now provides a robust news platform that's remarkable for a newspaper of our size. Updated every issue, it contains all of the content from the most current edition plus archives of past editions. Included in full-text are news stories, Federation and community activities, life cycle events, and regular features like editorials and columns.

Like all print newspapers, the Voice is facing financial challenges caused by a weak economy coupled with an increasing trend to reading news online. The paper and its management board recognized the need for a makeover of the paper's website, which previously offered a few samples of the paper's content, little interaction with readers, and no opportunity for advertisers to experiment with online advertising.

"We needed a website that would be minimally labor intensive for a small newspaper staff," explained Harriet Kessler, Jewish Federation Publications editor and general manager. Kessler wanted something that would enable her small but dedicated staff to publish online easily, while allowing interaction with readers, a website "that would make readers pay attention," she explained.

But acknowledging that such content-rich websites often require significant web development efforts, Kessler confessed, "I didn't think we'd ever find it."

Many such websites mean you need to publish the paper twice, once for print, and once for the web, essentially doubling the workload. That's not feasible for large papers, let alone for the Voice, Kessler said.

Then the Voice editorial team discovered Our- Hometown.com, a web developer in upstate New York that helps community newspapers quickly get their content onto the web.

Our-Hometown.com was originally developed as a platform for community bulletin boards, explained Stephen Larson, Our-Hometown.com's founder. In the late 1990s, Larson refocused the company's development efforts on community newspapers.

Among its clients are several community newspaper chains in New Jersey, such as The Hub in Red Bank, and Latinos Unidos in Freehold. The Voice is the first Jewish newspaper to use Our- Hometown.com. You can see a list of other publications using the service at http://tinyurl.com/53hsbw.

Harriet and her team initially were apprehensive about working long distance, but have been very pleased with Our-Hometown.com's service. "They were geared to small newspapers with small staffs," said Kessler. "They stressed the fact that there would be very little labor on the newspaper's part."

Our-Hometown.com extracts newspaper content from the same Acrobat PDF page layouts the Voice already prepares for its printer. The text, photos, and ads are automatically arranged into web pages. Advertisements are arranged into an online directory by product or service.

Voice readers can view and print the full-page PDF layouts of the Voice, so those who keep scrapbooks or mail articles to friends and family don't have to cut up their printed paper any more.

Positive reaction has been pouring in, Kessler said.

"The emails I've been getting have been fantastic," she said. "I'm hearing from readers I never heard from, saying 'I'm going to send this to my college kid to keep her in touch with the Jewish community.' "

Special sections are also available, and there's an RSS feed for the site. Breaking news and photo galleries will be added soon, broadening the Voice's ability to cover Jewish South Jersey, and eventually the Voice will add a blog for interactive conversations with readers, Kessler said.

Advertisers are taking advantage of new web options for their advertising packages, Kessler added. Even the small white space on the front of the printed newspaper (where the mailing label goes) has been sold as an extra advertisement on the web version of the paper. "We'll more than cover the cost of the website," said Kessler.

You can hear more of our conversations with Harriet Kessler and Steve Larson in the CompuSchmooze podcast at www.compuschmooze.com. steve@lubetkin.net