thebatavian

• Davis campaign launches a "fake" Powers Web site, by Philip Anselmo
• Bialkowski: Charlie Mallow "has failed miserably as a leader", Philip Anselmo
• Into the black: Audit shows Batavia on the financial upswing, by Philip Anselmo
• The Mall, by Amy Davis
• And the Winner Is......$$$$$........ Your Guess Is As Good As Mine, by Patrick Burk
• Daily News: Muckdog attendence lagging, by Howard Owens
• city centre reality check, by Mitchell Chess
• Let's support the Muckdogs, by Howard Owens
• Not all Democrats are in love with Jon Powers, by Howard Owens
• On the subject of the Mall: Bill Kauffman, by Philip Anselmo

Some people think the web makes the world bigger. I say, it makes it smaller.  Some people say the web makes us neighbors with people in Kenya or the Ukraine.  I say it makes us better neighbors with the family next door.

There was a time in United States history when newspapers served as a centralizing force for drawing communities together -- and then came  television, and cable, and satellite -- all the forces that did nothing to humanize communication, but made mass communication more mass and less personal. (Radio is a mixed bag. For every WBTA there are 10 radio stations programmed by a computer in Texas, Nevada or Pennsylvania.)

The Internet brings back the possibility of human-sized communication.

At a time when too many glass-eyed Americans turn to network TV for their "Heroes" and get "Lost" in the idea that last night's episode of whatever flimflam Hollywood is dishing out this season is worthy of deep discussion,  the Web opens up new possibilities for people, local people, people who share a common interest in a common community, to partake in conversation and pursue change with conviction.

If I might share a bit of personal biography: In 1995, I started a web site in eastern San Diego County called East County Online.  At the time, I would tell any number of colleagues in the newspaper business: "Mark my words, the web is the best thing that ever happened to local news; all the fascination now is with global communication, but eventually, people will look homeward and want to use the web to build better communities."

I've never stopped believing that. I believe it to this day.

I've learned a lot about the Internet and how people use it since 1995, but the philosophy remains the same: Together, we can use digital communication to build better, stronger, more self-reliant communities.

That's what I want The Batavian to do for Genesee County. And maybe, along the way, we can convince a few people to turn off the TV once or twice a week and visit a local art gallery, spend an evening  with the Batavia Players, or "root,root, root for the home team."

If you look at the people page, you'll note that we list only 318 members.  I don't have an exact count, but we're past that.  There's some software glich preventing an accurate count from appearing.  Our engineers will look into it soon.

Account confirmations: But speaking of members -- we've had at least 100 people sign up for accounts, some multiple times, but never confirm their account.

You must confirm your account in order to post anything.  When you sign up, an e-mail is sent to you and you must click on the link in that e-mail to confirm your account.

And to be clear, registering for the site is not required if you only want to read what's posted. That said, we hope and encourage everybody to post blog items and make comments, and registration is required for participation.

UPDATE (from Philip): If you are waiting for a confirmation e-mail or trying to retrieve a forgotten password and no e-mail seems to be showing up in your Inbox, check your spam folder. We've had a few folks whose aggressive spam-filter software relegated Batavian mails to the junk bin.

Advertising: If you have a business and are interested in advertising, write to me at howard at thebatavian dot com.

Free Job Ads: If you're an employer, you can post job ads for free.  Just click on the "Jobs" tab above and follow the directions from there.

Free Classifieds: Any private person can post free "Buy, Sell or Trade" ads. To post, click the "Buy, Sell, Trade" link above and follow the directions. Pictures are allowed with these posts. Just make sure the picture is no wider than 470 pixels.

We have a new commercial on WBTA.

Once again, the spot was recorded by Nici Johnson, local resident and waitress at the Pok-A-Dot.

We're quite proud of it: MP3 File

UPDATE: Ooops. My fault.  Show is at 9:40, twenty minutes later than the original headline indicated.

I will be on WBTA in the morning to discuss blogging -- not The Batavian so much as blogging in general.

My goal is to encourage more bloggers in Genesee County.  I don't care if you blog for The Batavian or your own Word Press or Blogger site, just blog.  It helps extend the conversation.

That will be my theme.

Tonight I am reading, as I have been for the past three nights, Bill Kauffman's Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette.

I come to this passage, related to the rising of Wal-Mart in Batavia:

My voice is as mute as the others in that silent night, unholy night. I supposed I am of the old  school of Thoreau and Emerson in that I distrust political solutions and prefer individual revolutions of the soul. I sympathized with those townspeople who wished to keep Wal-Mart out. But instead of passing laws to compel behavior I would rather my neighbors choose to shop locally. They will only do so when Batavia becomes once more a city with its own flavor and fashions. Whether that day will come, I do not know.

For me, if The Batavian can accomplish one thing, it will be to give voice to the people who want Batavia to be Batavia again.

I'm no Pollyanna. I know we cannot put the Brylcreem back in the tube, or unwind the the movie or rebuild C.L. Carr's, but we can promote an ideal that a rural town like Batavia should be more than bathroom break on the Thruway.

We have our corporate sponsors, which means that if the heavens opened up and Wal-Mart or Kmart decided to bequeath to us some ungodly sum of money for advertising (not likely, ever), we couldn't say no, but we are here first and foremost to support the businesses that support Batavia (and the rest of Genesee County).

We only ask one thing -- that you do the same. Before your next trip to Wal-Mart or Target, find out what local shop can do you the same service and patronize that store first.

Since we launched The Batavian in May, we've heard a recurring question: What about advertising?

The question has come from two quarters: Business people interested in advertising, and people wondering how the heck we're going to make this adventure into a paying business.

Starting this week, we get serious about the business side of the business.  The traffic is now strong enough, we have an engaged audience, the name of the site is spreading fast -- we now  have a good, fair value to offer the businesses of Genesee County.

We have two sales reps who start calling on area businesses this week.

They're going to offer the standard banner ads, of course, but what we're really excited about are the text ads we will offer. 

Ten percent of the revenue from these text ads will go to The Batavia Players, Inc.,  Summer Youth Theater Program.  On top of that, we are sending $500 to the program.

As we've said from the start, the goal of The Batavian is to be more than a news enterprise. We want The Batavian to help our communities grow stronger and enhance an area that is already a great place to live and work.

To that end, we're concentrating our sales efforts on local businesses (the big chains, not so much) so we can help those businesses thrive, and we're giving back to the community through donations and sponsorships.

Meanwhile, here's something you can do to support the youth of Genesee County, and more specifically, the Youth Theater -- go see Jesus Christ Superstar.  It opens tonight and runs through Saturday.  Patrick Burk tells us ticket sales have done well, but there's still plenty of seats left.  You should go. 

Our ad reps are Melissa McIntyre and Vanessa Haar. They, along with me and Philip, will be at Summer in the City on Friday and Saturday. We'll have balloons, water bottle kozies and bumper stickers.  If you come by and say, "hi," we may even put you in a video.  Look for us on Jackson Street on Friday and Main Street on Saturday.

Employers -- you can post free Help Wanted ads -- here.

Everybody else, got something to buy, sell or trade -- post your FREE ad here.

When we launched the Free Job postings, a couple of people suggested that we have a place for people to sell stuff.

Today, we're launching Buy, Sell, Trade -- free classified ads.  Any person registered with The Batavian can post ads for free. The ads must be posted by private individuals, not businesses, but can be for any physical goods.

So you guys that requested this -- please post some items to get the ball rolling!

UPDATE: Ooops, forgot to enable permissions for logged in users to be able to post a classified.  Done, now.  You can post by clicking here.

The Batavian's Philip Anselmo garnered two awards in 2007-08 New York State Associated Press Association writing contest.

He won a first place award for Business/Finance coverage and shared a third-place award in the Continuing Coverage category.

Prior to joining The Batavian, Philip was a staff writer with The Daily Messenger in Canandaigua, where he wrote his award-winning pieces.

The Daily News also made a fine showing in the contest.

• Spot News -- 3rd Place:  Family of four killed in head-on crash. Paul Mrozek, Scott DeSmit
• Sports -- 3rd Place:  A lot of guts, a little glory. Tom Rivers
• Columns -- 2nd Place:  Town supervisors, village mayors, define the working poor. Tom Rivers
• Arts/Entertainment -- 1st Place:  It’s hip to be a ’Chuck.’ Ben Beagle
• Arts/Entertainment Criticism -- 3rd Place: Holmes’ plays a lively game at Geva. Ben Beagle

The New York Daily News has published a complete list of awards.

Congratulations to all of the winners.

The following posts were the most viewed in July, based on our web tracking stats.

• Davis campaign launches a "fake" Powers Web site, by Philip Anselmo
• News roundup: Oatka Creek death termed 'accidental' (this was really about the steer), by Philip Anselmo
• Muckdogs to Bird Dog, by Eric Manning
• Jack Davis: Candidate or caricature?, by Russ Stresing
• News roundup: Beck and Mallow double team Cox and Bialkowski, by Philip Anselmo
• Fire on Ellicott Street, Philip Anselmo
• "Where am I? How did I get here?", by Russ Stresing
• Daily News declares itself nothing more than a fly swat, by Howard Owens
• Walnut Street roundabout, by Philip Anselmo
• News roundup: $4 million GCC project passed, by Philip Anselmo

We launched our free employment listings during the middle part of the July.

I was just looking over our stats -- in just that short of a time, more than 1,000 people looked at the jobs page. That tells me, there is a local online audience looking for employement opportunities.

Click on the "jobs" tab above and follow the directions on how to post your free employment ad.

We can easily assume that Batavian readers are engaged, informed, energetic people; you don't want to miss your chance to make your next great hire at no cost.

No community is an island.  The larger world finds its ways to intrude, from Middle East instability driving up gas prices, to presidential elections that will impact the economy and schools, there is more to the world than our home town.

And we all have an opinion about the world around us.

When we say "The Batavian -- Online News. Community Views."  The community views part isn't just about what you think about events in Genesee County; it's about what you, as people concerned with and involved in your local community think about all of those issues beyond parochial borders.

In such a spirit, we've expanded the range of headline links in the right column.

We've also added a "Nation & World" tab to the top navigation.  This is where you can post blog items about national, international and political issues you want to talk about.  I've started the conversation with a blog post about my dislike for political parties.

When you want to start a conversation with a new blog post, go to "Create Content" in the left column, then select "Blog Entry" and then select "Nation" or "World."  If you make that selection, when you save your post, it will appear under the Nation & World tab for all readers of The Batavian to find.

Also, if you're really into nation and world news. there's another way you can contribute to The Batavian -- and that's by adding headlines to the blocks on the right side of the page. 

It would be easy for us to set up some automated system to add headlines from major news sources around the globe, but that's so impersonal.  We're not a fan of automation when it comes to human communication.  We think that Batavians suggesting to other Batavians what might be interesting to read is far more useful than what some computer program might suggest.

If you would like to contribute "suggested reading" to the headline buckets, send me an e-mail (howard at the batavian dot com) and I'll provide instructions and the necessary permissions to make such a contribution to the site.

It turns out that for the past week, we had an error on our job submission form and somebody finally brought it to our attention.  It's fixed now.  If you tried to post a job and couldn't, you shouldn't have a problem now.

It's disappointing to learn today that the Daily News thinks of itself as serving no other higher public good than acting as a fly swat.

Well, I suppose it could also be used to line a bird cage, wrap a fish, clean a window or mulch a garden.

At The Batavian, we're pretty proud of the fact that we're here to serve the community by helping people become better informed and giving all residents a chance to have a voice in their community.

You can subscribe to the Daily Fly Swat at BataviaNews.com.

We've been advertising The Batavian on WBTA since the site launched in May.  We're very happy with the results, but agree with Dan Fisher that our ad should be switched up once in a while to keep the message fresh.

A week or so ago, I sent Dan over a new script and he suggested hiring a female announcer this time to change the tone of the ad.

The new ad started running yesterday.  It features Nici Johnson, a young, ambitious Batavian who is working to break into broadcasting.

I know her mostly as a waitress/short order cook at the Pok-A-Dot, one of my favorite fine dining establishments in town (previous post), but Nici is also working for WBTA, a couple of radio stations in Buffalo (in promotions) and teaches modeling on Sundays.

Young people who work that hard to get ahead always do, so we can expect great things from Nici.

Here is an MP3 of the spot.

It's very cool, we think, that Dan picked Nici to do this spot.

This isn't a major site change, but it does have a lot to do with how people participate in the site ... We've changed the way comments display under a post.

They are no longer "threaded," which means direct replies to a previous post no longer appear under the comment being replied to.  While the intent of that format is to make conversations easier to follow, it never really works that way.

The "old school" way of displaying comments on posts is in a flat list with the oldest comments on top, newest on the bottom.  That's what we're doing now.

According to our tracking, the following 10 posts received the most page views on The Batavian in June.

1. Lewiston Road fire claims life of 17-year-old Erik Mooney, by Howard Owens
2. D&C story makes it sound like Legislature is Do-Nothingers when it comes to property tax relief, by Howard Owens
3. On the Agenda (City Council): Moving youth football, by Philip Anselmo
4. Rainbows, by Daniel Cherry
5. Powers camp critical of Jack Davis in release of Energy Policy, by Philip Anselmo
6. Batavia food company enters into partnership with Disney, by Howard Owens
7. City Council: Overdrive, by Philip Anselmo
8. Police Chief by the end of the week?, by Philip Anselmo
9. Batavia to Florida, by Joseph Deni
10. Video: World War II Veteran Louis O'Geen, by Philip Anselmo

The Batavian continues to grow.  We continue to add new features to the site.

Now, we're offering FREE job postings for employers (and for job candidates, a new online source to look for a local job).

Employers in the region -- Genesee County, Buffalo, Rochester and all point in between, are invited to post their job openings for free on The Batavian.

To post a job, simply click on the "jobs" tab above, and then look for the link that says "click here."  Or, click here.

The person posting a job on behalf of an employer will need to be a registered user.

The "Employment" form to post a job will also appear under the "Create Content" tab on the left menu.

At a time of high gas prices and a slowing economy, we hope these free job postings will help local business and local workers.

We ask everbody to respect the opportunity to post free job openings by offering only legitimate employment opportunities -- not "work for free" opportunities, or multi-level marketing opportunities or other shady "business opportunities," but legtimate, paying jobs.

I love baseball, so with a certain amount of pride, I walked into Dwyer Stadium today and snapped this photo of The Batavian sign out in right field.

We're proud to be a 2008 sponsor of Batavia's legendary minor league baseball team.

This summer, we're also a sponsor of the BID's summer concert series.

We're looking at a couple of other sponsorship opportunities over the next couple of months.  If your group or organization is putting on an event and need local business sponsors, let us know, because we'll certainly consider it (we can't sponsor everything of course, but we have some money left in the budget for a couple of more sponsorships this summer).