I couldn't agree with Dormitas more.
Pasadena Now, the news organization that recently made the headlines by outsourcing journalism to India, seems to be scooping the old guard Pasadena pulp press.
Pasadena Now shows some technical rough edges, probably hallmarks of being a small operation. For examples, the fact that their home page CSS doesn't render properly on all browsers, and their Flash content throws non-fatal errors (see screen image above). At first I was dismissive of PN based on their lack of technical polish, but then Jill Davis Doughtie pointed out their Headlines RSS feed:
http://www.pasadenalivingmagazine.com/_ArticleManager/publish/rss.xml
Of course I immediatly subscribed to the feed. I subscribe to the pulp version of Pasadena Star News (yes, I know; what other version is there?!) and have now grown accustomed I seeing an article in PSN, which I already read (often covered more thoroughly) the day before when it came across my PN feed. Not only is PN scooping PSN by a full day with great regularity, but PN has quality that strikes me as a generally more granular, relevant cross section of *dena issues than PSN.
Add to high quality, timely, Web-friendly reporting the fact that their links don't grow stale after a couple weeks like PSN's do, and you've got a friend in me.
You can find Pasadena Now at either http://pasadenanow.com/ or http://pasadenalivingmagazine.com/ (don't ask me why their name and their url are branded differently)
I like Pasadena Now....but they do sometimes get "out-scooped" and credited for "scooping" by people who just didn't happen to be on the PSN website at, say, 2 in the morning.
ReplyDeleteNice entry as always.
P.S. I ranted on that Peter Dreier article in the P-Dub on my blog.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I read that. Nice one :P
ReplyDeletePS: AP's rant in case you were wondering is at www.proctorformayor.com/2007/09/14/ scroll to second post. LOLZ the Bee Gees picture!
ReplyDeleteOh, and re: scooping? Posting at 2am, even if it is a scoop, is not a scoop if there is no feed to "deliver" it. Right now, we have to wait for the pulp to plop. NOTE TO LARRY WILSON AND PSN AT LARGE: PLEASE OFFER RSS HEADLINES
ReplyDeleteThanks for having Kelli and I over on Friday!
ReplyDeleteJust minutes before Sock On Madison began!
It was a pleasure. We must do it again sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteNote that when the brush fire over at Chantry Flat was clearly visible to everyone in Pasadena after 3pm today, the Pasadena Star-News site had a report by half an hour later (3:38pm); as far as I can tell Pasadena Now still has nothing. For this neighborhood, that sort of thing is obviously of some importance.
ReplyDeleteVery true. I've also noticed that their RSS feed is still broken, making them essentially irrelevant for me. It's been down for a long time.
ReplyDelete