The Digital Desk

Everything you ever wanted to know about NewsOK.com

A note about weather closings and changing habits January 29, 2010 | Comment on this article

On Wednesday night, the NewsOK WeatherWatch iPhone application was live on the app store. It was perfect timing, too, since Winter Storm 2010 was bearing down on the state. Now, I don’t use an iPhone on a daily basis. I use my OPUBCO-issued Blackberry Curve (and I like it). My lovely wife Jenny, however, uses... Read More

Something is going on with Apple January 27, 2010 Yesterday, I saw this post on Twitter – only because someone I follow re-tweeted it: OK, the newborn next door and my dead grandfather have finally released their Apple Tablet Speculation articles. Phew, that’s everyone ever. This post came from Jason Santa Maria from Brooklyn, N.Y. It was one of many... Read More

Screwdrivers, condoms and Penguin Boy — just another NewsOK feature January 26, 2010 I read this paragraph last week on NewsOK.com: Penguin Boy makes the most of it. He moves around the stage, letting people see that he does, in fact, have a common household tool buried in his nasal cavity. Then he pulls the screwdriver out, and the condom remains in his nose. It’s an interesting excerpt –... Read More

Jenni Carlson – Listening to the audience; defending the city January 21, 2010 I posted a couple weeks ago about Oklahoma City Thunder reporter Darnell Mayberry’s impact on his audience — Thunder fans and Thunder players. Today, I’ll post about another star sports reporter that continues to supply our audience with opinions, features and reports on all mediums. I heard yesterday... Read More

MLK page, video worth seeing on NewsOK

January 19, 2010 Photographer Sarah Phipps spent some time last week getting content organized for a special presentation on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The holiday was yesterday, and we unveiled the project for our typically high audience on Monday morning. The centerpiece of the project is Sarah’s video of students... Read More

Replay the breaking news chat about morning earthquakes January 15, 2010 Earthquakes in Oklahoma startled much of the Oklahoma City area this morning. I was pulled out of a meeting to discuss how to cover the updated news we were getting on NewsOK. After discussing with News Director Robby Trammell and reporters on our breaking news team, we quickly started a live chat to share the... Read More

Additions to multimedia navigation December 21, 2009 We’ve added a few more items to the sub-navigation under the Multimedia page on NewsOK. The reason is very simple: We have some cool pages we’ve built in past few months, and we needed a place to call home. Since they are all ‘multimedia’ projects, the Multimedia tab seems like a nice place to park them.... Read More

‘Air Thunder’ on NewsOK December 18, 2009 Periodically, I’ll take a break and post a cool video that was produced on the seventh floor of our fine building here on Britton and Broadway. We call that space OPUBCO Studios. Today seems like a good day to take that break, because this yesterday we posted the “Air Thunder” weekly show, which is now... Read More

An update from Jim Chastain’s blog December 17, 2009 Jim Chastain hasn’t been posting to his blog as much as he did earlier this year. And if you follow his blog regularly, you know why … I’m still alive, but my health has really been slipping in the last two months. That came from a post on Sunday. His previous post before that came on Nov. 17, a funny... Read More

A feature about good people doing good things

December 15, 2009 As I browsed the newspaper this morning, I saw my former boss on the pages of our metro section. It wasn’t just any former boss. It was my first boss in my journalism career. I think she was my boss, anyway. It’s a gray area. Are you considered an employee if you don’t get paid anything? I was simply a... Read More

Oklahoma Places piece brings back memories of a proposal on the rocks

December 14, 2009 Almost 10 years ago, I knelt on a large boulder in the rocky desert of Western Oklahoma and proposed marriage to my girlfriend. I had planned it all day, but my nervousness postponed the proposal, and we kept hiking along until I finally made the move. By the time we headed back to camp, we realized we had gone... Read More

911 call captures attention of NewsOK audience December 09, 2009 What’s the story of the week on NewsOK? Is it MAPS 3 — the vote that passed with room to spare? Or is it something else? Say, a story about a woman defending her home with a 16-gauge shotgun. If you’re looking for a story that will probably be remembered in 20 years, it’s the MAPS 3 vote. If... Read More

NewsOK E-mail Headline alerts get a new look

December 08, 2009 If you are one of the lucky recipients of our daily e-mail headlines, you’ve noticed a big change in the past couple of days. We drastically changed the look of the e-mails that enter your inbox. Its simpler, more organized and more consistent with the general look and feel of NewsOK on a daily basis. We hope... Read More

A defining moment in history

December 07, 2009 Every Monday, we aim to bring something new and different to our readers. We have set a goal to offer a multimedia presentation for the time each week when our traffic is the heaviest — Monday morning. Sometimes, it’s an nDepth presentation. Other times, it’s a ‘know it’ topic. Last week, it was a... Read More

NewsOK + wimgo = your holiday connection

December 04, 2009 This post is very simple ….. NewsOK has Christmas covered with news and information about the holiday. Just go to our Christmas page for articles, videos, photos and more about the Christmas season. And make sure to stop by our ‘know it’ topic on Giving and Volunteering. Wimgo has your holiday events... Read More

Life page looks alive with quick face lift

December 02, 2009 We updated our outlook on Life this week. You can check it out on our main Life page – a main navigation item on NewsOK. What problem were we trying to solve? Actually, we were trying to solve the same basic problem we’re always trying to solve — how can we properly showcase the depth of content that we... Read More

Another brick in the NewsOK Story Wall

December 01, 2009 We’re actually up to Story Wall No. 4 now. And the latest example of the NewsOK Story Wall technique comes from the Bedlam football game in Norman on Saturday. We started with a Story Wall from the Oklahoma State Fair. That was fun. Then we did a Story Wall on the OU-Texas football game. That was even more... Read More

An outstanding series: A close look at the state of the adult day health services

November 30, 2009 We began an important series over the long Thansksgiving weekend, shedding light on the state of adult care services in Oklahoma. It appeared in The Oklahoman and on NewsOK in three parts from Friday through Sunday. And while we know The Oklahoman is widely used on long holiday weekends, the traffic on NewsOK... Read More

It’s not a holiday unless NewsOK has a page for it – Happy Thanksgiving

November 24, 2009 Happy Thanksgiving! - Sincerely, NewsOK.com. P.S. – for all the articles, recipes, event listings and volunteer opportunities, visit the NewsOK Thanksgiving page. It’s a nice page to begin your Thanksgiving knowledge, but we’re getting a lot of information from our friends at wimgo and the know it... Read More

Foggy day in Oklahoma City November 23, 2009 Whenever I’m in need of a blog post and just don’t know what to write about, I visit the NewsOK Video page. There’s always something cool going on there, and today is no different. It was foggy this morning. I saw it. So did videographer Tanner Herriot. But this short video made the fog seem much more... Read More