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>-start a text chain and see who's available to get on right
>away? (May work sometimes)
>-wait til we can get on at night and record one
>-wait til next days so we have more analysis or breakdown.
First things first: We post a headline STAT with whatever information is on hand, reminding folks we'll be back shortly with more. We just make sure it's a verifiable situation so we don't jump the gun and look like asses.
Then, I dunno about a text chain- I'm all about phone calls. Call people going through the on-call rotation, let them know, and see who can jump on it first. We can be proactive with breaking news by subscribing to major outlets and any alerts or tweets they might offer. Most of us have smart phones, I'm sure.
Otherwise, you laid it out precisely. Even if it's a quick video recorded on a phone and uploaded to youtube to get a 5 minute commentary to break the story, it's important we have guys willing to jump on something right away. I'm all in, personally.
>See this is what I love about the board and I want to think
>outside the box about how we can capture this.
Simple, I'd say. If we're doing the site to the degree of your vision, then we all need to be as plugged in as possible. For awhile it means coming in second in terms of breaking things as they happen, since it means we're getting the information from outlets that have already broke the story, but over time that will change.
What's important to set us apart, I think, is two things:
1. Avoiding the flavor-of-the-moment, speculative bullshit the hacks at Bleacher Report rely on and focusing on more thoughtful, quality articles as well as interviews if at all possible.
2. Interaction with our readership. If we can inject the OKS brand of mad making, agenda warfare, and overall knowledge into this thing with a cleaner, more mainstream sensibility, I think that's a recipe for success. It has to maintain that element of barber shop banter IMO. That's really the hallmark.
So instead of, say, these long exchanges we have on the boards, we could pick two guys to present written arguments on a topic and encourage people to vote for the better argument. Consistent interaction via twitter and youtube will also be vital.
3. I think we should place a greater value and emphasis on our reader responses. We can rate responders based on their comment and if there's a guy who knows his stuff, let's interview him. If guys know they might get some recognition for their input, why wouldn't they come back? In a sense, we're treating our readers (i.e, customers) as actual partners instead of currency, if that makes sense.
Over time, if/as we develop connections and sources and whatnot, we'll develop a stronger base. So long as we present a somewhat more organized version of OKS and interact with the people, we're good.
>The easy answer is we start with a podcast/blog post and then
>move the convo to a message board or the comments section of
>the post...
I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the message boards. I suggest promoting conversation within the comments, same as a regular news site. Message boards sort of double up on the same material and detracts from the feeling of 'real time' interaction, even if it is mostly illusion. Plus, I can just install a plugin to Wordpress that allows for live chat. We can take and record caller segments too. It all boils down to how committed we are.
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