Bakotopia.com relaunches with new look, new platform

Five-year-old Bakotopia.com has just relaunched with a long-overdue redesign that emphasizes the site's strengths in blogging and social interaction around local entertainment and whacks dead wood that built up over the years.

Some of the highlights:

• A greater emphasis on what you want to read. We pruned some of the stuff that just wasn't getting traffic and put more focus on the things people were using.
• A livelier logo.
• Dozens of different wallpapers that change regularly with each new page. Our long-term goal is to let our readers and artists in the community design future wallpapers. 
• A widget that pulls in entertainment stories from bakersfield.com.The new design pulls in a PDF of The Californian's Thursday Eye on Entertainment section We know Bakotopia is something of an alternative to The Californian, but we also know The Californian delivers local entertainment news Bakotopia readers are interested in.
• More promotion for the weekly Bakotopia Radio show on KRAB 106.1 FM, which features local music and exclusive live performances.

We're publishing the site with the open-source Drupal publishing system.

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Bakersfield Voice expands, Bakotopia evolves

Way back in September, I discussed The Bakersfield Californian’s evaluation of printed versions of its Bakersfield Voice and Bakotopia products, and our commitment to niche local websites and community journalism. At that time, deep in the recession, we were reviewing the performance of those products, something smart companies do in tough economic times.

We have since made changes to both products that increase advertising revenue and reduce costs in ways we hope will position them for success now and down the road. Bakersfield Voice will relaunch Sunday with a new print design and strategy, while we recently put the biweekly Bakotopia print magazine on hold after two years. We will continue to operate the websites for each brand and are working on other tools to increase their reach in our community.

Bakersfield Voice

The printed version of Bakersfield Voice has a new look that will debut Sunday and will be delivered weekly to 146,295 households in the Bakersfield area. The Voice will be delivered to non-subscribers of The Californian, and for the first time, on the east side of Bakersfield.

The Voice initially was created to serve the fast-growing northwest portion of Bakersfield (hence its initial name, Northwest Voice), but a year ago was merged with its sister publication Southwest Voice and renamed Bakersfield Voice to better reflect its readership.

While the different incarnations of the Voices had enjoyed good readership, we struggled to maintain initial advertising success and keep the hyperlocal ads that had not been a part of the daily Californian. We tried different pricing, packaging and distribution, but couldn’t find a formula for profitability.

The new Bakersfield Voice is printed on a 54-inch web and on thick stockBy dramatically increasing our circulation and using Bakersfield Voice as a “jacket” for preprint advertisements, we believe we’re better positioned than ever to ensure the Voice's success in increasing advertising, readership and engagement with our community.

The new distribution more than doubles Bakersfield Voice's previous circulation, and is nearly six times that of Northwest Voice at its peak. We’re hoping that increased print distribution will increase activity on BakersfieldVoice.com as a central location for hyperlocal user-submitted news throughout our market.

The look of the printed Voice is changing too. A 54-inch broadsheet has replaced the long-standing tab format, and we’ve placed a greater emphasis on long-term advertising contracts with local retailers (with a strong focus on coupons) and national preprint advertisers that we think will ensure profitability. News content remains 100% user submitted through BakersfieldVoice.com, but in order to control newsprint costs and gain profitability, we’re limiting content – at least initially -- to 25% of newshole. Stories in Sunday's edition include staples like pets, school activities and local arts.

The Voice will be a work in progress moving forward, but we’re excited about the prospects.

(Disclosure: My wife is a Voice contractor, coordinating content for publication).

Bakotopia

The second niche product undergoing changes is Bakotopia.com, an edgy alternative to The Californian that launched five years ago as a competitor to Craigslist, and which later evolved into a local social network centered around local arts and music. Bakotopia magazine's last issue before going into hibernation. The dress is comprised of issues of Bakotopia magazineTwo years ago, we spun off a biweekly print magazine titled Bakotopia featuring a mix of staff and user-submitted content from the website. The magazine (here's an e-edition sample) generated new revenue from mostly small advertisers -- with occasional full page ads from national companies -- and brought us readers who wouldn't touch The Californian. Despite those positives, we were unable to cover our costs.

The recession sapped our ability to absorb those losses, so in late December, we put the magazine version of Bakotopia on hold, with hopes of returning when the economy rebounds and we can rebuild the ad base.

Matt Munoz, the longtime face of Bakotopia in print and online, has since focused his time on feeding the website, coordinating sponsored events and launching a new weekly “Bakotopia Radio” show on local rock station KRAB. It’s proof that Bakotopia is evolving but full of more life than ever.

In the coming weeks and months, we’re planning to migrate Bakotopia.com onto a Drupal platform, launch a cool and long overdue website redesign and create a new digital version of the magazine using our home-grown Printcasting tools. We're also tossing around ideas on how to weave some Bakotopia content into The Californian.

Stay tuned.

Two new ventures stretch traditional book publishing

I learned about two different innovative approaches to book publishing the last few days that I thought were worth celebrating.

Crowdsourcing “The Wire”

"The Wire: Re-Up" includes half of its content from Guardian readersThe first relates to one of my favorite TV shows, “The Wire” (see previous post). “The Wire” has taken Great Britain by storm, oddly enough initially as a DVD box set, then later as the series was broadcast, several years after it debuted in the States.

The series is so popular and critically acclaimed that British publications like The Word and The Guardian have given it extensive coverage. The Guardian in fact has a dedicated “Wire” blog that helps readers navigate each episode as it airs.

And it’s the blog that is the source of a new book called “The Wire: Re-up” that The Guardian is publishing. The book will not only feature blog posts, but reader comments: “About half of the content is the words written by you readers,” The Guardian’s Steve Busfield announced today.

“The Wire” is so nuanced and full of layers that you want -- and need -- a crowd to help source the storylines. Kudos to The Guardian for recognizing that. I was unaware of the Guardian “Wire” blog but I’ll be ordering the book and can’t wait to read what my fellow fans have to teach me.

Riding the Wave

I’m a dedicated listener of “This Week in Google,” a tech-geek podcast on all things related to the cloud, and specifically Google.

As you might expect, the much-ballyhooed Google Wave has been a hot topic on the show, so much so it’s become a running joke. The Wave is more like a Ripple at this point, although I know its power will be upon us soon enough.

And that’s why core TWIG contributor Gina Trapani has co-authored a new “book” called “The Complete Guide to Google Wave.” I use the term “book” loosely because the guide is currently a wiki (using the MediaWiki software that’s at the foundation of Wikepedia). Trapani and co-author Adam Pash are inviting the crowd to share in the creation of the guide using traditional wiki editing tools.

Wiki software allows the crowd to help create Trapani's Google Wave guideBut that’s just the start of the fun. The guide will be available both as a PDF (free of digital-rights management) and as well as a softcover print book, “with new editions to follow throughout 2010.” Those print versions will be updated with Twitter, email and web updates, all of which will be free. And the crowd will contribute throughout.

As Trapani said on this week’s TWIG, tech books are outdated as soon as they’re published so technical guides need to be fluid as software or products develop.

Trapani has a great reputation already as a founder of Lifehacker and her personal blog, Smarterware. But she smartly sees Wave as a way to position herself as an expert on a software tool that many believe will be the foundation of content creation for years to come. And she seems to grasp that to position herself as a Wave expert, she must first serve as a guide who inspires others into the possibilities. Trapani is refreshingly upfront about some of Wave’s shortcomings, expressing frustration and confusion with some features.  That builds trust with me, that the “book” she produces will be honest, and not just a love letter to Google.

As with most things Google, the beta product is just the beginning of a long journey to parts unknown.