EastLife and its news
The EastLife website is dedicated to covering life in the eastern suburbs of Auckland. The front page of the site includes a community diary, a search, weather, and newsy items, giving the site an overall appearance of a local newspaper. The site has an active feeling but is not cluttered.
Miraz Jordan interviewed Peter Barclay, who's responsible for the site.
- Miraz
- Did Eastlife decide on their own to go for this type of format or was that idea suggested by the web developers?
- Peter
- It's aiming at being a community internet portal so putting the community diary right up front seemed essential.
- Miraz
- As a lot of new items are added all the time it's obvious to wonder how you keep up with it all. Isn't it a full-time job?
- Peter
- Yes it would be a full time job to maintain everything ourselves but the system is set up so other people can manage it as well.When it comes to content we are starting to get a good feed of material from a growing range of sources which helps a lot. As the site is still fairly new the web team are still doing all the management themselves because they want to understand how well the system functions and to iron out any bugs.
- Miraz
- Does the site use some kind of Content Management System or Blog?
- Peter
- The site uses a Content Management System (CMS) called iNews Publisher whose creators also produce the calendar system it uses. There seemed little point in reinventing the wheel on the content management system when we knew the real challenge would be in marketing and updating the site.
- Miraz
- Is iNews Publisher easy to use? Is it easy for you or one of your associates to add new items? Does that person have to know how to make web pages?"
- Peter
- Yes the CMS is easy to use. Operators can choose from a set of templates that we design and install in the management area. This means they can choose different layouts depending say on the number of pictures they have with a story. The standard interface is similar to Microsoft Word so theoretically lots of things are possible but we like to stick to a reasonably set pattern for the sake of uniformity. It helps people to know where to find things."
- Miraz
- I see you have an RSS Feed button on the page. DId you have to ask for RSS specially? Did you want an RSS Feed or did the web developer suggest it? What made you decide to go ahead with a feed?
- Peter
- RSS is part of the iNews system but it was a major factor in making us choose them. We are absolute devotees of RSS and have no doubt its use will expand substantially over the next couple of years. Obviously we'd like to think everybody wakes up and rushes to our site every morning but the reality is that more and more people prefer to choose information from a range of sites. RSS makes that happen.
- Miraz
- I see you actually have several RSS Feeds — for News, Sport, Most recent articles etc. Is it a lot of work to do this? Or is it automated in some way?
- Peter
- It is completely automated.
- Miraz
- People like to keep track of who's reading their news. Do you know if anyone's subscribed to the feeds? Have you had any feedback on this feature?
- Peter
- At this point no, but given the fact that we only opened the site after Easter it is still early days yet. Another factor is that we haven't started to really promote the site. We want to build up our content, especially in the areas of general community information and there is still an arts section to be installed as well.
Resources
Find out more about RSS Feeds from the CommunityNet Aotearoa pages: