His experience setting up a social network for his beat hasn’t gone that well, but Victor is not giving up on using social and Web tools for his beat. This is just the beginning of his Web efforts and Ning has been a learning experience for him.

Listen to Victor discuss what went wrong, what went well and what he will be doing in the future with social networking for his beat:

Click here to stream the interview. Or click here to download the MP3.

“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.”

Read more below.

clipped from bydanielvictor.com A little over a month ago, I started using Twitter despite a lot of skepticism. I really didn’t think it would have much value for me, despite what a boatload of journalists have said. I said I would give it a one-month trial run and re-evaluate afterward. The result, which I hope will be taken to heart by other reporters who have been similarly skeptical: It’s a lot better than I expected, and worth the time for any reporter or news organization. I found 14 local users in the first day, which was more than I thought but still not a big number. I used a combination of the site’s search feature, Twitterlocal, TwitDir and Tweetscan to find them. But a funny thing happened: Apparently my presence on the site motivated others to give it a try. After many of the local bloggers made a run onto the site, one of them wrote: What was this impetus for this local surge in interest?  My research has traced it to Daniel Victor,

One beatbloggingish thing I’ve done recently though is ask the sf_indie email list what is so wrong with Pitchfork’s reviews.  It didn’t come from my beatblogging network, but it utilized some of the same principles.

I ended up with a great quote

Related from Daniel Victor:

From my network I’ve made contact with people who have contacted me outside of the network to give me information.

ie: The network Daniel set up introduced him to new sources – the subsequent sourcing happened in a traditional one-to-one manner, but Daniel never would have met the new sources if it hadn’t been for his network.

Just yesterday Wired News music reporter Eliot Van Buskirk launched a private Ning network that already has fourteen members of high caliber.

I say “high caliber” because the members of this network are both on target – they live and breathe digital music and because, at least based on the percentage that uploaded photos, they appear to be tech-savvy and responsive to network calls of action.

Two other networks that have launched recently are Daniel Victor’s “Hershey Home” and Matt Nauman’s “Green Tech Beat,” which have 30 and 24 members respectively.

I started a discussion about growing their networks – asking if they had an ideal number, or how large they wanted these networks to grow. The response I recieved surprised me – but might come as a ‘duh statement’ to anyone who is a hardcore beat reporter.

I come from the frame of mind where more people can’t be bad: Nobody wants a closed network, they are like islands – and on the internet no island can succeed. To the contrary, as was pointed out to me, the beat bloggers aren’t concerned with the ultimate number of people who join but the quality. Matt Nauman put it best:

“My worry isn’t really about size, it’s the quality, type and participation of
members. Rather than a generic “green living” site, I’m doing something
specifically related to my beat here in Business, so folks telling me they
recycle or carry reusable bags to the market doesn’t get me anywhere.

I need folks to point me to good stories, and then help me ask good questions to make those stories better.”

As I see it – we have two forces pulling us in different directions. I come from the motto that all bugs are shallow: Get enough eyes on the problem and somebody will have the answer. If a network only has 30 members it might have been that theoretical 31st member that would have the information you needed for that story. The devil’s advocate, of course, is that there is signal and noise. Noise has little value – and the more people you have in a network, the more noise you add. In that view of things – having control over the network and keeping a tight lid on it is a boon.

What do you think? Is there an optimal number of people who should be a in a network? How do you balance noise and signal?

One particularly interesting function of the network (and perhaps a result of being picked up by the local high school’s alumni network, is piecing together where old high school jocks are now, like this picture of the 1963 Hershey Cubs. It’s fascinating that people are trying to piece together the people in the photograph.

A more detailed update from Daniel:

I think things are going well. It needs to be considered that this is,
frankly, a bit of a slow news period in Hershey. Not much is going on
on the other forums, either. I’m just encouraged that new members are
continually signing up — I’ve even had to deny three memberships when
they’ve refused to sign up with their names. I e-mailed each of them
individually kindly explaining that it’s necessary, but they haven’t
been willing to do that, apparently.

The project has involved some interesting additions to the
reporter’s job description. One member e-mailed me to ask why he
couldn’t sign out, so I taught him how to delete his temporary Internet
files in IE (that fixed the problem). The president of the local AARP
called and asked how to join the network, and it’s been difficult
explaining to her how exactly it’s different than just e-mailing her
thoughts to me.

Overall, the people I’ve talked to have said they’re very pleased
with it, and clearly some of them are really taking an initiative in
uploading photos and inviting others. The test I’m really waiting for
is when some kind of big breaking news story happens, or at least a
more substantive issue that attracts a lot of attention. We’ll see if
people immediately sign on then.

Early on, however, someone took the network as a sign that the general forum was failing: 

"Has it gotten so bad over there that Patriot News reporter Daniel Victor saw fit to set up a completely separate website at http://hersheyhome.ning.com/ or is there another reason?"

That’s a fair question, but the network Victor is setting up isn’t a forum. This is a tool for his reporting – one that the residents of Hershey can also use to inform themselves and converse with others on important issues.

Daniel handled the question very well: "
This is set up more as a laboratory to see if this kind of forum works, and to see how much it could improve The Patriot-News.

Also: Whereas the Pennlive forums are moderated by the people at
Pennlive (which is a separate company from The Patriot-News), I will be
the sole moderator here."

That’s how a 10-inch column starts in today’s Patriot News, which introduces readers to the social network that Daniel Victor has set up in the hopes to become that better informed reporter.

I’ve spoken with Daniel and here’s the scoop.

About two weeks ago the Ning site was up and he invited some of the first members. He sent out his pitch (below) to eight potential members. Four signed up – giving him a 50 percent attrition rate, which is not that bad. But will it scale?

According to his editor, Tom Barstow, his goal is to end up with 35-45 members. If his beat was national, I wouldn’t worry about that mark at all. But because Daniel’s beat is local – he has a limited pool of people he needs to reach. Somehow he needs to tap into the neighborhood network, or what I would call "the mommy network" in my home town (where all the mothers new what all their children were up to before we even knew).

One thing I particularly like about Daniel’s Ning site, he created a welcome video. It has Daniel explaining to the new members what this site is about – he looks honest and conversational. Let’s see if he can get the word out.

Find more videos like this on The Patriot-News Hershey Home

I’ve had conversations with all 12 of our beat bloggers (number 13 is TBA and will have catching up to do) and wanted to give an update on the first four now. The remaining eight will be highlighted in subsequent posts.

Click to read more.

News org: Dallas Morning News
Reporter: Kent Fisher: Spoke with on Monday November 20th

Current status: Kent is in the early stages of thinking about
how he can build an active social network considering some of the
unique challenges he faces covering the Dallas public school district.
He knows the general approach he wants to use, which is to use the
social network as a megaphone to broadcast out to his sources. But also
to connect folks that he’s not currently talking to.

He contrasted it with the explanation Jeff Jarvis envisioned here: “But
now the role of the reporter can and should be different: as a
moderator, vetter, enabler, encourager.” After I sent that link out,
Kent explained that what he wants is a way to keep in touch with
everyone to inform his reporting. If it creates a side discussion that
leads to change, he is happy with it, but his goal is still going to be
to get better reporting.

Still to come: As a result of the special concerns below, Kent
plans on doing some shoe-leather social networking first. He has to
present his case to the right people to get them online and part of his
network. Off in the distance Kent has the idea of creating online
forums for all 227 schools. A district water cooler where people can
congregate online. One concern is that 227 different forums will be too
fragmented and people will end up in chat rooms by themselves. Another
means of organizing them into larger forum groups is under
consideration.

Special concerns: When Kent approached an administrator at the
school district the reply was “that’s a great idea, but it’ll never
work in Dallas.”

The school district in Dallas is amid serious reform, so principles are
overworked. The district is largely poor and minority, so many parents
don’t have online access. Tens of thousands more don’t even speak
English. Yet, those parents are the sources that Kent wants to reach,
because that’s where the story behind Dallas’ public school system is.
There is also the question of anonymity. “The Dallas district has a
long history of punishing people who don’t tow the party line,” said
Kent. Several teachers Kent has asked to participate were excited about
the idea, but they feared they’d get in trouble for speaking their mind
on a public blog.

Finally there is the concern about what will happen to the blog and his
sources during the summer break. With a few weeks of slow news, will
they come back to the network after summer vacation?

Big Unknowns: The biggest unknown is “who is going to be in the
network?” Kent wants to get people involved who he isn’t already
talking to. It’s the classic problem: How do we know the people we
don’t know? And how will we overcome the parental digital divide?

Tools under consideration: Right now there isn’t a blog for
Kent’s reporting, which appears in the paper. What Kent is working on
now is figuring out the best content management system that will allow
him to report on the blog and seamlessly broadcast out to his network
of sources. Moveable Type will probably be what they start with and
from there they will either add widgets or find a third party site to
build the network.

Where the excitement is: “Moving our beat coverage of a huge
school district to “real time” blog that will allow people to
communicate, share ideas and offer guidance as stories unfold.”

News Org: Chronicle of Higher Education
Reporter: Brad Wolverton. Spoke with on Wednesday Novemeber 22nd.

Current status: As mentioned above, Kent read the Jarvis post
and described his vision in contrast to it. Brad, on the other hand, is
singing a similar tune to Jarvis. His goal is to create a space where
discussion can take place and Brad will watch closely as the
conversation flies by. Brad is also the first beat blogger out of the
gate. He has gotten about 40 trusted sources to join a Google Group and
he may add another dozen or so in coming weeks, he says. His hope is
that he will broaden this network and tap into it in a deeper way.

Still to come: Brad is using Google Groups as a home base for
now, but is looking into other options. To begin, since these are his
sources – he is having them do short introductions to each other, so
they can get to know each other.

Special concerns: So far Brad seems to be the most gung-ho to be
as open as possible. The question is, how open should he be? He has
even been contacted by another reporter, not necessarily a competitor,
but someone close to his beat, who wants to join. Brad is considering
it. He also seemed very aware that starting up the conversation will
require some goading in the beginning on his end, and is figuring out
how exactly he can increase participation.

He will also face the immediate challenge of the holidays. Since he has
already contacted lots of sources, there will be a week or two of
general radio silence over Christmas and he’ll have to removitate
people post-holiday-mortem.

Big Unknowns: How open is Brad going to let this be? Can anyone
join? Will it be private, but his sources can invite their friends? Is
he willing to lose the “scoop” in order to be at the helm of the
conversation in this network? Right now Brad seems to be guided by the
mantra that open is better – but we are both unsure where this will
lead. He will still want to control the ebb and flow of the
conversation, but doesn’t want to do it in a top-down manner. Brad will
have to work on his finesse with the sources.

Tools: Right now Brad is using Google Groups. The biggest
problem with this tool is that it lacks a sense of getting to know the
personality of other participants. Google groups is mainly used as a
list-serve. But if he wants to get a conversation going, Brad will need
to provide more than just a group email. To help in this early stage
Brad is having a round of introductions, but soon he may need to find a
more concrete way for the people in his network to really get a sense
of one another.

Where the excitement is: Brad has a purely experimental attitude
towards this.  He says: “I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of interest in
this experiment, with one person even describing it as college sports’
version of the Pugwash Conference. While nuclear disarmament isn’t our
goal, some participants think our discussions could lead to ways for
big-time athletic departments to curb their massive spending. I’m sure
that’ll never happen, but I’m encouraged that people see a higher
purpose to these discussions than just feeding me tips. My publication
is in the throes of redesigning the architecture of our website. I
decided not to wait for that to happen, and just set up a Google group
to get a dialogue going. I suspect I’ll move the group into a more
interactive setting at some point, but for now I’m anxious to start.
I’ll keep you posted on the kind of feedback I get to my first few
discussion topics, which I hope to tee up in the next couple of days.
But my long-term goal here may be a bit different than a lot of
peoples’. I want to build a strong (and private) discussion forum that
stays a fairly manageable size, at least for now. Eventually I could
see gravitating this group into a public setting, or creating another
more public group with a similar bent. I also want to start tapping
some of the people in my group to post things to a blog I’m planning to
start early next year, giving them posting privileges similar to what I
have. I’m sure the idea will evolve, and I’m anxious to hear what
others are doing.”

News org: Houston Chronicle
Reporter: Eric Berger, Spoke with on November 20th

Current status: Still in the early stages. Getting a strong idea
for what he wants to achieve, which is unqiue from the other beat
bloggers. His vision is to turn his networked sources into regular
bloggers. Very ambitious and will require extra motiviation.

Future Plans: The idea is to create nine sub-blogs under his
general science blog. Each blog, on a specific science subject will be
run by two scientists and an enthusiastic laymen. He will link back to
these blogs as they pertain to the most important news of the day.

Special concerns:  Keeping people motivated and trying to get
scientists involved on a long term basis. He’s actually tried something
similar before. The difficulty is keeping people active for longer
periods of time. Everyone likes the idea — but after two months the
scientists might wonder why they are managing these sub-blogs.

Eric also wants to find the right people who will cultivate a community
of their own. He has had expeience with science blogs turning into
politically biased shouting matches, and the fear here is that the
heads of these blogs will also need to have moderating skills.

Big Unknowns: The biggest unkown is how he will keep the space
active and constantly moving forward. This means finding a way to
recognize his contributors and give credit where it is due. There is
also the question of how this will be structured. The website is
currently run on Moveable type and Eric wants to find a way to turn his
single blog into a blog ring with individual spaces for the people he
brings in.

Tools: Eric intends on building sub-blogs with the tech support
from the Houston Chronicle. The question is, how will they be
represented on the main page? Eric is currently looking into options
for his blog that will allow him to actively highlight and interact
with the other blogs. There was also talk of holding physical meetings
in the Houston Texas area inviting scientsits from all over the region
- a kind of CafeScientifique.

Where the excitement is….Eric is really reaching out to find a
way to engage these sources. He isn’t just going to rely on them to
inform him, he is going to ask them to become ambitious contributors
who write for these blogs. If you look at the growing communities of
ScienceBlogs and now SCIAM’s community site – it’s easy to see that
science blogging is on the rise, or at least, interest in it is. Eric
thinks he can better serve his readers if he invites scientists to
directly post under his blog, giving them a direct voice.
Eric says:……….”The goal is to maximize participation by working
scientists who want to engage the public, and to keep the discussions
friendly and on point. The initial target audience is Texans, but
eventually it could become recognized as a national meeting place for
those interested in science. The unique thing here is a place that
encourages direct interaction between scientists and the interested
public. So it’s not a blog for scientists, and not a blog for the
public. It’s a neutral meeting place for both.”

News Org: Patriot-News
Daniel Victor. Spoke with on November 27th

Current status: Daniel has a fairly good picture in his head of
what the network should look like with a few holes. He has been trying
to get those clearly articulated to address them. He also has started
writing his “pitch” letter to the people he will want to participate in
the network. Once it’s coherent enough to send out to an initial group,
the networking will begin.

Still to come: Daniel has a uniuqe beat in this project because
he is cover the communit at large including development, schools, the
chocolate factory (Hersheys’) and the theme park. His initial plan is
to invite a small group of trusted residents. From there the network
will grow.

Special concerns: One of my concerns has been how to translate
the content gathered in the acebook group, or whatever it is, into blog
format. My biggest concern is that there’s somewhat of a culture of
fear here…people are convinced if they speak out about the school
district, their kids will be punished. So the biggest question is: does
he invite school board members, a township supervisor or a spokesman
for the chocolate company? Or would that just serve to stifle the
discussion?

Big Unknowns: How big should the network be? That’s one of the
key questions he has been wrestling with and he may just leave it up to
the community to make the final decision. Daniel is also afraid that he
is “foolishly optimistic” in his ability to effectively moderate the
discussion, which he could reasonably see beecoming a problem down the
road. Some forums on the web site have turned into mud throwing with
very little accomplished.

Tools: Ning, Facebook, on a blog using widgets? Daniel is still
looking into where he wants the network to live. Facebook is being
thrown around, especially by other people in the newsroom as a
potential home, but Daniel isn’t 100 percent sold. Ning is another
option which he will look into. It’s looking like Daniel will use a
third party host site to get started and will incporate widgets in his
blog to tie the two together.

Where the excitement is: “I’m hoping that all the discussions
that usually happen at soccer games and e-mails between parents will
instead happen within my earshot. Those parents wouldn’t normally think
of e-mailing me but most of the time, they’d be surprised how
interesting I’d find that information.
I see this as a way to more effectively gather story ideas and when I
do have those story ideas, I’ll be able to pack them with more context
than I might have otherwise been able to quickly assemble, itseems like
everything in this town has a long, long back story.”

"Community is everything. We believe a town-and-school blog, especially in a community as tight-knit as Hershey, will generate sustained interest…."

The Beat: Hershey Pennsylvania. Covering the town in Hershey, central Penn. town.

The Reporter: Daniel Victor, staff reporter, The Patriot News.

Descripotion: David Newhouse, executive editor of Patriot News writes…

We would like to enthusiastically volunteer The Patriot-News in
Harrisburg, PA for your "beat reporting with a social network" project.
We have been aggressively pursuing 24/7 reporting for nearly two years.
On an average weekday, we post about 40 live news, sports, business and
entertainment items, over and above the articles and listings from the
day’s print newspaper. Our reporters are equipped with laptops and the
means to be completely mobile. We take great pride in breaking news
first, beating TV or (in the case of state government, as we’re the
state capital) AP to the punch. We recently broke the story that the
CEO of Hershey Foods had resigned, and our staff crowed about the fact
that we beat everyone online with the story, including the WSJ by one
minute!

At the same time, we have had limited success in reaching the
community with a more interactive reporting model. Our web site has
open forums that are busy but often like a (slightly drunk)
conversation in a bar. The comment feature on stories generates limited
feedback.

We would propose to have our reporter, Dan Victor, create a social
network around his regular beat of the town and schools of Hershey.
This may seem like a conservative or unimaginative choice. However, we
have created public blogs around topics and found that interest tends
to dwindle after a while. In central Pennsylvania, people are
passionate about where they live. Community is everything. It is THE
social network. We believe a town-and-school blog, especially in a
community as tight-knit as Hershey, will generate sustained interest
because it taps into a network of true stakeholders.

The Patriot-News Team: (1. Daniel Victor, beat reporter
(2. David Newhouse and Cate Barron, executive and managing editors
(3. Alan Hayakawa, online editor
(4. Tom Barstow, business editor
(5. Mike Freeley and Ron Soutwick, city editor and assistant city editor
(6. Tom Dochat and Sharon Smith, business reporters