Posts Tagged ‘Boston.com’

Students from Northeastern University and Emerson College will contribute neighborhood news to Your Town, Boston.com‘s network of hyperlocal news sites, under terms of separate agreements with both universities.

There are currently 50 Your Town sites up and running, covering neighborhoods or towns in and around Boston.

The Boston Globe regional editor David Dahl said:

We’re delighted with this collaboration. It provides Your Town readers with even more local coverage and enriches the educational experience of Emerson and Northeastern students.

Read more

With snowpocalypse after snowpocalypse drilling the Atlantic states this winter, what better time to launch a new health and wellness online destination? Boston.com stepped up to the plate with Health & Wellness, which offers news and information on health, fintness, nutrition, and the medical industry, including content from Boston.com and The Boston Globe.

Health & Wellness is also the home of blogs Daily Dose, where reporter Deborah Kotz focuses on consumer health news and advice from Boston-area medical experts, and White Coat Notes, which will cover news and happenings in the local medical community. A weekly email newsletter is available, as well.

Reader comments are highlighted on Health & Wellness, and users can participate in discussion boards and live chats with local doctors and experts.

Read more

Boston.com is issuing a challenge to hackers, announcing The Boston Hack Day Challenge, which will be held at the MassChallenge office on Fan Pier in Boston’s Innovation District and “challenge developers, techies, product managers, marketers, designers, entrepreneurs, and others to create new online and mobile products that can make life better for Bostonians.”

Registration is located at beta.boston.com, and the site said it is also seeking local companies with application-programming interfaces it can use at the event.

Project 11, which specializes in mentoring startup technology companies, will help organize the weekend.

Read more

Ronald Agrella returned to The Boston Globe as editor of Boston.com, according to a memo from deputy managing editor for multimedia Bennie DiNardo to the editorial staff, obtained by Romenesko. The memo read:

I’m excited to share the great news that our old colleague, Ronald Agrella, has agreed to return to the fold as the next editor of Boston.com.

Ron led the features section of the Web site to national prominence, receiving Editor & Publisher EPpy awards in 2009 for the arts and entertainment and Things to Do sections. Ron helped us create our thriving online events system, pioneered new chat tools, and oversaw creative online presentations of our Oscar coverage. Ron’s keen sense of the kinds of stories, features, and presentations that appeal to the online community will be invaluable as Boston.com continues to grow and evolve along with the new Bostonglobe.com.

Read more

Your Town the local community network of sites from Boston.com, is now in 17 Boston neighborhoods, as the six sites that went live earlier this year — Allston-Brighton, Back Bay, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, South Boston, and South End — were joined by 11 new sites.

The Your Town sites feature neighborhood event listings, library locations, fire-station locations, public health resources, voter information, City Council meeting information, the ability to report public works issues such as potholes, local MBTA schedules, real estate listings, and companion iPhone apps that include navigation help.

The 11 new neighborhoods are Beacon Hill, Charlestown, Downtown, East Boston, Fenway/Kenmore, Hyde Park, Mattapan, North End, Roslindale, Roxbury, and West Roxbury.

Read more

The Boston Globe announced that it will launch paid subscription site BostonGlobe.com in the second half of 2011, shifting over much of its content from Boston.com, which will continue to operate as a free site and offer daily local news, sports, weather, and guides to entertainment, travel, and restaurants.

BostonGlobe.com will contain news and feature stories, commentary, analysis, photos, and graphics from the daily and Sunday newspapers, and paid subscribers to the print publication will automatically receive subscriptions to the Web site.

The Boston Globe publisher and New England Media Group president Christopher Mayer said:

Our research shows that Boston.com currently attracts several different types of users. Some are readers whose main interest is breaking news and things to do, while others want access to the entirety of The Boston Globe. These two distinct sites will allow us to serve both types of readers with maximum effectiveness, while continuing to provide advertisers the large engaged audience they have come to expect from Boston.com.

Boston.com will roll out the first six of 16 planned hyperlocal Your Town sites for individual neighborhoods, with the initial half-dozen being Allston/Brighton, Back Bay, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, South Boston, and the South End, and the remaining 10 scheduled to debut by the end of the fall.

The sites will be populated by local correspondents working with staff from Boston.com and The Boston Globe, covering topics including local politics, crime statistics, and transportation, and users will be able to pay town and city bills online; access trash and recycling schedules; order parking permits; report potholes and other public-works issues; follow high school sports, including schedules; and access listings of neighborhood events and real estate.

The Boston Globe and Boston.com vice president of digital Robert Kempf said:

Boston truly is a city of neighborhoods, and each has a distinctive identity. We believe adjusting the Your Town model to include coverage of neighborhoods will be the most useful way to serve Bostonians. It is hyperlocal journalism at its best.