When I was working on Beat Blogging and the original batch of 13 guinea pig reporters one piece of advice I gave them was to start reading tech bloggers. I stand by that advice.

Not only because every reporter needs to know tools like Twitter, RSS and more — but because tech reporters at VentureBeat, GigaOm and others were already “Beat Blogging.”

They cover technology and then end up using the tools to help aid and abed their reporting. So when I ran into two reporters from ReadWriteWeb, I decided to flip the camera on them and find out what tools they use to make their reporting easier and perhaps more interactive.

Funny enough, it looks as though Jay Rosen also uses the FriendFeed approach.

While neither of these tips relate back to the interactivity of a beat blog – you can start to see how these reporters use technology to enable their reporting. These aren’t just social networks – they are tools!

What tools do you use to listen? RSS, FriendFeed, Technorati?
What tools do you use to talk? Twitter, blogs, YouTube?
What tools do you use to collaborate? Wikis, polls?

As I’ve said before, I am not leaving Beat Blogging, but I do have another project which will keep me busy.
But I am pleased to know that Patrick Thornton is officially coming in to take the reigns of beat blogging. This guy has web and journalism chops to spare. So it is being left in good hands.

As Jay Rosen notes: "He’s going to "scour the Web for people who are pushing the practice of beat reporting." That’s what this project is about, that’s what it has always been about. How does reporting change in a networked world? Nobody claims to have answers – but I rest easier knowing that people like Pat are on the hunt.

“I love the beatblogging project because it’s innovation in real newsroom laboratories, as opposed to tsk-tsking and dreaming.

My foray into it has had its ups and downs, but I recently had a kind of success story that I didn’t expect when I signed up.

And it shows why I believe so much that social networking can revolutionize small-town beat reporting.

A woman in the town I cover believed that she had spotted an
injustice. (I won’t go into detail for competitive reasons, and because
my work on the possible story is ongoing.)

But she didn’t know what to do with this knowledge, so like any
other computer user, she turned to Google. She typed in the name of a
resident in town who her neighbors had recommended, a person who might
know what to do with this information.

One of the first results took her to The Hershey Home, the Ning network I set up for the beatblogging project. The resident she sought has been a frequent contributor to the network.

Once there, she strolled around the site. She read all of my
solicitations for story ideas, background information on stories I was
already working on, and feedback for stories I’ve already written. She
went ahead and e-mailed me to set up a meeting.

After she spilled the beans at our meeting, I asked her why she contacted me.

“I just read through your comments on the site, and you seemed like
the type of person who would want to hear this,” she responded.

Imagine that! I may have stumbled upon a high-impact story based on a tip from a person who isn’t even a member of the network.
She chose to contact a reporter because the network put up an “Open for
Business” sign,  and revealed that I have a genuine interest in hearing
from as many residents as possible.

An obligatory listing of our e-mail address at the end of our
stories doesn’t invite our readers to contact us, it just allows them
to. Setting up this kind of network, interacting with people online,
and really advertising that we really, really do want to hear from
people can directly lead to stories.”

As I think I mentioned in my introduction as an associate beat blogger, the architecture/urban design part of my beat is quite new.

I have made one decision — to create my network around the subject of urban design. A subject that’s about the literal fabric of the community seems so suited to the beat blogging approach and it lends itself to a wider breadth of voices than, say, a network around visual art would.

In any case, I have been going about the business of reaching out to new sources the old fashioned way, by grabbing quick meetings over coffee and lunch. But, as I make these connections, I’ve been sharing
my vision for a network, which would include architects, city planners, academics, artists, developers, neighborhood association leaders, and so on.

The response has been whole hearted enthusiasm and offers of help. The take away: some face-to-face chats with the would-be network has been a great source of ideas for how to build the network. And it’s
building buzz, too. Key people are on board, some are recruiting others and I’ve got a notebook full of topics for discussion. One architectural firm offered to host a reception for the group on their roof top overlooking Milwaukee’s river and skyline.

I realize that today’s excitement may not result in tomorrow’s participation, but I believe it may help give the network a proper launch.

In the meantime, I continue to send out a weekly email newsletter that provides links back to my Art City blog, which is one-stop shopping for all of my art and architecture content, recommendations for the
weekend, previews of what’s ahead and so on. I’ve been doing this, I think, for nearly two years now and have nearly 2,000 subscribers. I promote this newsletter when I can in my tag line at the end of stories and in the blog. I’ve also (thanks to Dave’s advice!) recently started using Twitterfeed to send automatic updates from the blog out to Twitter and Facebook.

For such a sizable list, I don’t get as much direct communication as I’d like. But I’m realizing I need to more consciously set out to engage people.

Two other very quick things. Several reporters at the paper are looking at ways to innovate. We’ve been producing proposals for several months now. Last week, we produced a proposal on beat blogging
(with a lot of support material from the efforts some of you have made and from the Beat Blogging Blog) and solicited specific proposals from the newsroom. The hope is to get more people experimenting with these
tools and to raise awareness about how they can improve our reporting and connections to the community.

Lastly, I wanted to share a project with you that I cooked up before I joined this group. It’s very much in its beta phase still. But I’d love your feedback. It’s not precisely beat blogging, but the core
concepts are there. Here it is: http://www.jsonline.com/links/inthemaking.

So, there’s my update. I’d love to hear more about how all of you are doing. Has anyone come up with some new strategies for incorporating all of these things into the day?

Thanks to the hard work of Hassan Hodges, we launched a redesign and a few upgrades at our pharmaceutical industry news site Pharmalot
over the weekend. The changes focused on a few key areas, and they were
geared toward improving the overall experience for the site’s growing
community of users:

Connections
>Promotion for Pharmalot’s Facebook page.
>Prominent links to Pharmalot’s Twitter stream, RSS feeds, and email subscriptions.

Search engine optimization
>Reduced duplicate content.
>Better search terms to organize content.
>Better content in those oh-so-important H1 and H2 fields.

Performance
>Reduced homepage HTML size from 67KB to 46KB.
>15% fewer requests for external files.
>25% fewer database calls to generate a page.
>Total homepage load reduced from 266KB to 188KB.
>Total load time cut in half from 3.7 to 1.9 seconds. Individual
results will vary, but we’re processing fewer components on the back
end and serving everything in a leaner way.

Printing
>Better support for printing pages via a print stylesheet. (This was our most requested new feature.)

We’ll keep rolling out improvements and responding to suggestions
from users. If you have any thoughts about how we can make the site
better, please drop a line here or in the comments below. You can also see the archived Cover It Live chat Hassan held today with users on the site. And of course Ed Silverman, the grand poobah of Pharmalot, always welcomes your input.

What a brilliant use of the new FriendFeed room feature.

FriendFeed is still an early adopter crowd, even more so than Twitter, but the rooms have a simple interface that, I suspect, would be easier for a non-digital native to pick up and adopt.

As always, I wouldn’t force people into a network, the beat blogger has to come to them. But increasingly I believe it’s about having multiple networks. For example, I started a FriendFeed room for the Bay Area, but that won’t stop me from joining or interacting with a Bay Area group on Facebook. Between the two, I am more and more connected.

If I connect the activities of these groups to my Google Reader, I can effortlessly keep in touch with what is happening on both and react when necessary.

So what’s your beat? Does it have a FriendFeed room? Is there already a Facebook group? Can you join those two, get accepted into those communities – and then when you are ready, create your own Ning group to serve your personal reporting needs?

One great teacher is Beth Kanter. She is fantastic at explaining the basics of how one should start to approach online organizing and social media. Below she explains the "cute dog theory."

Kan

Check out what Eric Berger is doing at the Houston Chronicle.

This is no small feat. Eric is recruiting local science experts to create and maintain blogs covering their specific fields of interest. As “science” is a huge study ranging from meterology, biology and all kinds of ‘ologies’ – Eric could theoretically create a vast blog network.

But conditions on the ground suggest that Berger should take it slow – one blog at a time. The first blog, Atmo.Sphere, looks like a great start. It’s described as “climate conversation with John Nielsen-Gammon and Barry Lefer.”

What does this development mean?

Eric is building a network. “The goal of these changes is to provide a neutral space for scientists
and the general public to meet and speak on the issues of the day.
There are blogs by scientists for scientists, and there are blogs aimed
at the general public. I’m aiming for a hybrid site where people can
get their questions answered by real, live scientists, where scientists
can get feedback, and everyone can find a bit of daily zen.”

The hard part is yet to come. Eric will have to keep the bloggers motivated and make them feel like part of his posse. A follow up post may talk with people at the Chron to find out what technology is driving this, but as always, technology is second to people power. The real effort was Eric finding a science blogger to dedicate themselves towards this project.

Read more from Eric to find out what he is looking for and what he hopes to get out of the experiment.
(yes, I really want you to click that link, because it’s a fantastic pitch to get the public involved in journalism)

You chose the topic: Your beat
You choose who is invited: Can be public, restricted (anyone can view, but only contributors you choose can submit), or private (only contributors can view and submit).

Let’s say your beat is pharmaceuticals. Perhaps you have a rabid audience of people who know the industry already. They don’t need you to give them the latest news, what they want from you is analysis.

But to find out what the latest news is – they can help. With a custom Reddit you are getting the latest links, and a sense of how important they are as deemed by your community. That’s better than your personal RSS reader any day.