2006-09-07
How do I get started?
To get started, visit myMaineToday.com with your favorite Web browser and make your way to your home town using the “visit another town” box.
Your town’s page has space for events, stories, photo albums and classified ads. Beneath each is a link to post an item in that section, such as “Post an event” or “Post a story.”
Post an event: myMaineToday.com is an ideal way to tell your neighbors about different events going on around town. It’s perfect for bake sales, bean suppers, school sports calendars, plays, car club cruise nights or even block parties ... if you don’t mind the whole town showing up, that is.
Post a story: Everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours? Stories can be about last night’s soccer match, something your child’s classroom worked on this week, a proposed construction project in town, a way to say thanks to a good samaritan or a way to rant about local political or news issues. You can add up to three photos to your stories, too.
Post photos: This is a fun way to show everyone what they missed at a local event, like a band concert, parade or sports event. You can upload as many photos as you wish to your very own photo albums that everyone can enjoy. The site accepts standard JPEG images, just like those from nearly every digital camera or camera-equipped cell phone.
Post an ad: Tired of tripping over the clutter in the garage or basement? Turn your old junk into cold cash by advertising it on myMaineToday.com. You can post as many ads as you wish. Each ad can be as long as you want and can have up to six photos. The ads won’t cost you a penny ... and they’re a great way to “recycle.”
Please note that the first time that you post, you may be asked to register with MaineToday.com. Registering is free and only takes a minute to create your account, which is needed to keep track of the information that you post. If you’ve registered in the past, you may need to log in instead, especially if you’ve gotten a new PC or are running certain kinds of Internet security software.Once you’ve registered, you’re free to post whatever you want to myMaineToday.com.
Your town’s page has space for events, stories, photo albums and classified ads. Beneath each is a link to post an item in that section, such as “Post an event” or “Post a story.”
Post an event: myMaineToday.com is an ideal way to tell your neighbors about different events going on around town. It’s perfect for bake sales, bean suppers, school sports calendars, plays, car club cruise nights or even block parties ... if you don’t mind the whole town showing up, that is.
Post a story: Everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours? Stories can be about last night’s soccer match, something your child’s classroom worked on this week, a proposed construction project in town, a way to say thanks to a good samaritan or a way to rant about local political or news issues. You can add up to three photos to your stories, too.
Post photos: This is a fun way to show everyone what they missed at a local event, like a band concert, parade or sports event. You can upload as many photos as you wish to your very own photo albums that everyone can enjoy. The site accepts standard JPEG images, just like those from nearly every digital camera or camera-equipped cell phone.
Post an ad: Tired of tripping over the clutter in the garage or basement? Turn your old junk into cold cash by advertising it on myMaineToday.com. You can post as many ads as you wish. Each ad can be as long as you want and can have up to six photos. The ads won’t cost you a penny ... and they’re a great way to “recycle.”
Please note that the first time that you post, you may be asked to register with MaineToday.com. Registering is free and only takes a minute to create your account, which is needed to keep track of the information that you post. If you’ve registered in the past, you may need to log in instead, especially if you’ve gotten a new PC or are running certain kinds of Internet security software.Once you’ve registered, you’re free to post whatever you want to myMaineToday.com.
Today’s newspaper readers are well-equipped with cell phones, iPods, digital and video cameras, and often find themselves in the thick of the news as it is happening. Average citizens, making news, being part of the news and sharing that news with their neighbors is the current media wave that’s gaining momentum across the country.
The Community Leader, along with our Blethen Maine Newspapers partner MaineToday.com, is pleased to announce a joint-venture Web site called myMaineToday.com, which will allow readers in Falmouth, Freeport, Cumberland, Yarmouth and North Yarmouth to participate in reporting the news. The Web site went live today for citizens of these five towns and is ready for residents’ use by logging on and uploading meeting announcements, sports events, news items, family reunion photos, pet pictures — anything you’d like to let others in your town know about.
“This is one of the most exciting initiatives since we started MaineToday.com in 1995,” said Joe Michaud, president of the Internet publishing division of Blethen Maine Newspapers. “We’ve seen that in the past couple of years, what is now called ‘citizen media’ has taken off — not only on our site but across the country and around the world.”
For The Community Leader, myMaineToday.com reprepresents a more intimate way to connect with and serve our readers. We will spend the next month encouraging citizens to upload content to the myMaineToday.com page which represents their town. We plan to announce outreach opportunities to help teach users how best to take and submit photos and what types of content we’re looking for. The newspaper already has many friends in these communities who regularly contribute content to its pages. By bypassing e-mail or fax and uploading this information directly to myMaineToday.com, contributors should experience near-instant gratification by seeing their photos or news items appear on the Web site within minutes.
In phase two of this initiative, coming in October, the staff of The Community Leader will select some of the best content found on these Web sites and publish it within the pages of the newspaper, in effect putting you in charge of the news.
“This is our way of taking the extra step to better involve the residents of our towns with their community newspaper,” said David Kaufman, publisher of The Community Leader. “We have always published news about people you know. Now we’ll be giving our readers news by people they know.”
In bringing this new form of media to our readers, The Community Leader will be joining some of the country’s most progressive newspapers. Though most daily newspapers have constructed Web sites which allow reader contributions — The Wall Street Journal, The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Post among the most prominent — few weekly newspapers have taken this step. The Hartsville (S.C.) Messenger went online with its citizen media Web site, HartsvilleToday, on Oct. 27, 2005. Though contributed content is published only on the Web site and not in the newspaper, a report detailing the first 10 months of the initiative gave statistics of 7,355 hits for June of this year.
“More and more newspapers are trying to do something to connect with the public,” said Aly Colòn, a teaching journalist at Poynter Institute. “Anything we can do to help the reader feel more engaged with the product is a good thing.”
Though ability levels will certainly vary, we don’t expect users of myMaineToday.com to be journalists. Some users may choose to contribute an opinion column or a story compiled from an event they’ve attended. Others may simply upload a photo of a friend or neighbor with a few words attached. Because this is your Web site and your printed content, anything goes (assuming it does not violate basic standards, which are posted on the site). All of your contributions will help make the newspaper even more of a community product.
“For a news company like ours, citizen media is a powerful complement to our professional journalism,” said Michaud. “As ordinary people increasingly contribute their own news, opinions, events and photos, we can more accurately reflect the communities we serve.”
Over time, MaineToday.com plans to launch a myMaineToday.com site for every town in the state. The Community Leader is proud to offer this product to its readers first because we understand that whether you are a professional journalists or just an average citizen everyone has information, observations and stories to tell. The bonds that hold our communities together will only become stronger when everyone has a chance to be heard.
Reader comments
Sort by: Oldest first | Newest First
Question 11- Contingency of the 2007-2008 Budget Proposal appears like a gift card for the district. I would like an account of all money spent for the last five years from contingency and ask why the money needed in other areas was not increased? I find it hard to believe that year after year $70,000 must be spent so that we can be asked for another $70,000 next year. Is this just? Your thoughts?
Sincerely,report abuse
What does the Govener have against smokers? He's raising the taxes on cigaretts by $12.00 a carton.Maine is the fourth highest state on cigarett taxes and after this we will be the highest on cigarette tax. Number 1 out of all fifty states. You can go to the Big Apple in Fairfield and buy a carton of cigs after taxes for $49.00 and after the Goveners new taxes a carton will cost you $61.00 a carton. A pack will cost you $6.60 per pack. This will leave more thief of cigarettes more breaking into closed stores and more stealing from other people of there cigarettes. Alcohol has hardly been touch by any Taxes because most everyone in Augusta State House drinks. Heaven forbid that they put more Taxes on there alcohol and that they have to pay more for there drinking habits. Why is the Goverenment putting the burden on smokers and not the alcohol drinkers? Alcohol drinkers do more harm to the public than smokers do.Thier is violence,car accidents,laws being broken and more. Why can't they taxs the alcohol like they do with the cigarettes and let that tax carry the goverment thru the crazy spendding.Maybe with a higher taxes on Alcohol the teenagers will have a hard time to get there alcohol. We need to tell the state house to stop taxing the cigarettes and find another way to find there money. Call today and voice your opinion.report abuse
Redington Math
Most people seem to think that the rejection by LURC of the Redington proposal is a major loss to combating air pollution and global warming. Nothing is further from the truth. There will be many other proposals coming because Congress has made it so profitable to do so with our tax money.
But there is a much larger question people need to consider. If state officials are hell-bent on fostering wind power in Maine, we need to consider some numbers. To reach the stated Energy Office goal of 10% of our energy generated from WP by 2017, that will require the installation of nearly 2000 huge wind turbines. The exact figure varies according to how one calculates this.
The wind turbines that were to have been used on Redington have a “capacity factor” of about one Megawatt. This is because they only operate a little less that a third of the time according to the US Energy office. Since 10% of Maine’s energy would mean slightly over 2000 MW, that would require in the vicinity of 2000 turbines.
Now try to envision a 200 mile string of 2000 of these mammoth towers from the NH border along the Appalachian Mountains up to White Cap Mountain, just south of Katahdin. Nor is it just the towers, it is the related mountain roads, transmission lines and all that goes with converting our mountains into industrial power production sites.
No one seems to look at this whole picture. Most see only the thirty turbines on Redington. But it is the big picture we all must consider.
Steve Clark, Shapleigh
report abuse
JPF is a grass roots organization that has grown to be the largest org. of independent musicians in the world! JFP represents 350,000 songs and 25,500+ albums from over 100 countries and in over 80 different genres. We should be proud of our Maine Musicians and give them more credit. Dan has lived and worked in Maine for over 25 years. He can be reached at 797-8250report abuse
Show all 7 comments
You must be a registered user of MaineToday.com to post a comment. Register or log in.