niusonline - how it will work

as a public service, niusonline cautions against random chaos from
cat-on-keyboard-syndrome, or COKS.

...

BEHIND THE SCENES


by jason brown, niusonline editor


overview: a behind-the-screens peek
at the thinking going into niusonline,
a public pacific islands nius website,
with regionally new, relatively simple
email-based publishing system,
following in the foot steps of PIJO,
the Pacific Islands Journalists
Online.

niusonline - a web 2 approach to pacific islands news coverage -
is taking shape.

A website for founding details has been set up, along with a
google group serving three functions - email list, online forum,
and a star-based rating or ranking system.

The stars allows industry members and the public to vote for
content on this site.

TIGHT FOCUS

Focused tightly on Pacific Islands news sites, this unique
search engine will deliver the web's fastest and most
comprehensive look at issues as they develop, in real time,
across the region.

Or that's the theory anyway!

For now it's on with this first post of the new niusonline
blog, using email-2-web auto-publishing to provide instant
links to often fast-fading news headlines.

HOW IT WILL WORK

Some of you will already be using news alerts to keep
yourself up-to-date with the latest on any one issue -
including how it looks in the overseas press.

niusonline merely converts each of those email updates into
unique web pages, automatically, using the email-2-web
software mentioned above.

Those pages in turn produce feeds that can be picked up by
our google group, or anyone else for that matter.

WHO CAN USE IT

Anyone, like web publishers, can use feeds from niusonline to
produce their own unique blend of regional news links, or to
build their own custom search engines.

In other words, we are using exactly the same kind of easy,
free, online tools that have already proved such a success in
the private PIJO forum for Pacific Islands Journalists Online.

Anyone is free to do the same thing - niusonline will be sure
to link to them too! The IT gangs will readily recognise this as
an open-source model for managing public information.

WHAT NEXT?

Send an email.

Simple as that. Whatever comes through the inbox first gets
posted first. Meantime, volunteer editors can get busy working
up regional, national and issues-based feeds. But be careful! You
can post corrections, but once it hits the web, everyone can read
what has been emailed. Remember, this is an-the-record, all
emails-2-web, real-time, real-world, instantly updating, auto-
publishing, living, breathing, draft or beta version of what already
exists on PIJO.

Just pimped out a little more, a few more tricks, including some
tasty tools of total transparency.

UPCOMING

A FAQ. Editorial policies. All proceeds to PIJO. Some simple
how-to's. Oh, yes, and hard, ugly truths behind "cute" feline
photos.