Tools for producing web content

With the opportunity of a breaking story on the Quebec federation vote for momentum, the Montreal Gazette in Canada jumped into Web publishing in October 1995 with a Mac stolen from the newsroom and WebWeaver, a $35 shareware, said Peter Cooney, assistant managing editor for systems.

Now graduating to Adobe's PageMill for site building, Cooney stressed that a site's success depends on content, not tools. Offering content for free will get people to look at it, but eventually the content must keep pace with growing expectations.

Be ready for the type of tools that people will use in the next few years, he said. Wireless, satellite delivered information will leapfrog land-based delivery is some parts of the undeveloped world, and new technology from Microsoft, AT&T and Motorola will keep information providers like newspapers hopping to convert their content to the new delivery methods, such as Zaurus and Newton personal devices.

"We should be worried about this. Newspapers are not ready to produce the content," Cooney said. "I'm not sure people will be satisfied to the page-based content we're producing now."

He encouraged development of "multiskilled news producers who collect sound and pictures as what they do," a big change in a culture steeped in years of emphasis on writing skills. Tools to apply this media and applet technology makes the Web a more dynamic place than newspapers are accustomed to being, and they'll require fewer coders on staff.

Quark Immedia helps the Gazette experiment with multimedia, Cooney said. Contents from a travel section are converted into kiosk or downloadable Web files (with the special Quark browser also available for download). While one extra browser may be resisted by customers, Immedia is an easy way to start practicing multimedia in an evolving newsroom.

A production of The Cole Group, Copyright (c) 1997, All Rights Reserved.

Last updated: 25 June 1997.

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