DP Website Gets an Advertising Upgrade

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 25, 2009 in Business and Meta News. 1 Comment

In a press release, Media General mentions that they’re testing out a new online advertising model on the Daily Progress website:

A transforming development occurring in the world of online advertising right now is the deployment of Yahoo!’s targeted advertising technology on our Web sites. This capability opens significant opportunity for our markets and advertisers. Essentially, the Yahoo! technology delivers smart ads to users based on their online behavior. Our pilot site launched in Charlottesville in March. We’ve signed new business in the auto, retail, service and real estate categories as a result. Advertisers are keenly interested in being able to target their message so precisely to consumers who are most likely to buy their product or service. All of our sites will be using this leading-edge technology by the end of the third quarter.

Yahoo only started customizing ads for viewers of their ad network sites in February, the culmination of a disastrous years-long process to duplicate Google’s success in the same market. The move means that while the Progress was once limited to displaying the same advertisements on their entire website, no matter the visitor, now somebody who has read an article about the Dogwood Festival is more likely to see an ad for the event. If this sounds obvious, you’re right—Google and DoubleClick have been providing these sorts of ads for over half a decade. This is good news for the Progress, though, because it increases the value of their online advertising at a time when they very much need to show Media General that they’re a newspaper worth keeping as a going interest.

Dogwood Carnival Victim of McIntire Plans

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 25, 2009 in General News. 26 Comments

The Dogwood Festival will need a new home, Christina Mora reports for NBC-29, since McIntire Park is being converted into something considerably less park-like. The event has been held in McIntire Park for sixty years (before that it was the Apple Harvest Festival, held in the fall beginning in 1950). The organizers are looking for a new home for their rides and fireworks, somewhere in Charlottesville or Albemarle.

I wonder if this means that our annual Fourth of July celebration can’t continue to be held in McIntire? If that’s the case, City Council may find itself with a full-blown rebellion on hand. It’s one thing to eliminate softball fields. It’s another to eliminate the only viable location in the city to celebrate the founding of our nation.

4:02 PM Update: Mayor Dave Norris says it ain’t so:

The media accounts on 29 and in the Hook are incorrect. The City is NOT planning to evict the Dogwood Carnival from McIntire Park. If anything, the changes afoot for the western side of the park will make McIntire an even better home for the Dogwood Festival. The only issue is what to do with the Festival NEXT YEAR if there is a major construction project going on in the park at that time.

Foxfield and Dogwood Parade Tomorrow

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 24, 2009 in General News and Transportation. 14 Comments

Foxfield and the Dogwood Parade are tomorrow. So don’t drive, y’know, anywhere. Alternately, head to town around 9:00 AM, find a spot downtown, and watch the parade. The weather should be perfect. But don’t go to Foxfield—spring is when we cede it to the students. Wait for the fall running.

Progress Alumna Wins a Pulitzer Prize

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 21, 2009 in Meta News. 6 Comments

The St. Petersburg Times’ Lane DeGregory, who won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing yesterday, is an alumna of the Daily Progress, Bob Gibson writes on Facebook. DeGregory won for “The Girl in the Window,” which the judges describe as a “moving, richly detailed story of a neglected little girl, found in a roach-infested room, unable to talk or feed herself, who was adopted by a new family committed to her nurturing.”

The paper won a second Pulitzer yesterday, for their popular Truth-O-Meter website, which evaluates the accuracy of claims made by political leaders. The nationally-respected paper has racked up eight Pulitzers since 1964, surely in part because they are owned and operated by a non-profit journalism school, The Poynter Institute. And though there’s no Pulitzer in it, I highly recommend wasting some time on their their Tampa Bay Mug Shots website. I like to use it to play a game I call “Guess the Crime,” based on the photos.

Sizable Illegal Dump Found in Batesville

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 21, 2009 in General News. 30 Comments

A 3/4 acre illegal dump has been found on Henry Chiles’ land in Batesville, Brandon Shulleeta reports in today’s Daily Progress. The pile—eight feet tall in places—contains thousands of bags of trash, large appliances, batteries, and tires. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is investigating, and they suspect that there’s a severe amount of resulting pollution of the soil and water. Mr. Chiles—the owner of Crown Orchard, best known for its peaches—says that he doesn’t know anything about a dump. It’s not unusual for conveniently-located vacant land to end up as an illegal dump for third parties, though something of this scale would have to be unusual.

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