You are browsing the archive for 2010 March.

InJersey featured on Hyperlocal 101

March 19, 2010 in hyperlocal by Ted Mann

I was recently interviewed by Shields Bialasik, who runs LocalsGuide (devoted to Ashland, Oregon). We talked about all things hyperlocal, including our efforts here on InJersey, some of our competitors, and the future of niche websites like these. I don’t quite know if I agree with Shield’s identifying me as a “hyperlocal expert” — like everyone else working in this space — I still have far more to learn than I do to teach, but it was an interesting conversation.

Read the full interview over on Hyperlocal101.com.

South Jersey Call to Service Summit

March 16, 2010 in Citizen Journalism by Ted Mann

Starting at 5pm tonight, the Citizens Campaign — a non-profit group dedicated to teaching and nurturing community activists and citizen journalists — is hosting a “South Jersey Call to Service Summit” at Stockton College. Among the speakers will be yours truly. Hope you can make it.

Here are more details from the Citizens Campaign website:

The South Jersey Call to Service Summit has a new date, Tuesday March 16, 2010 from 5-8pm. SIGN UP ONLINE.

Want to actively participate in your community? You are invited to join government and political experts from around the state to discuss how citizens can effect positive change- from cutting your property taxes to rooting out government corruption.

This free South Jersey Call to Service Summit will provide you with insider knowledge and skills to effectively tackle the problems facing your town and county. The Summit will offer free training, including expert analysis and insight from political insiders, and open discussion on each of these topics.

Speakers include:

Keynote Speaker: Gil Medina, Cushman Wakefield, former Secretary of Commerce, former Camden City Councilman

Christopher Daggett, former DEP Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate
Debra P. DiLorenzo, President & CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey NJ State Senator Joseph Kyrillos
Paul Josephson, former Chief Counsel to the Governor and Legal Counsel to State Democratic Committee
Joan Wright, former Gov. Kean Cabinet Member & former Assemblywoman
Ted Mann, Founder, InJersey.com and Digital Director, Gannett News
Dr. Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., President, Stockton College

Summit Program:

  • 5-5:30: Networking & Registration (A Wing Gallery)
  • 5:30-5:40: Welcome to the Jersey Call to Service (Alton Auditorium)
  • 5:50-6:50: Break out Panels (B & C Wings)
  • 7:00-8:00: Call to Service Celebration (F Wing Atrium)

Break Out Panels:

  • Tools for Citizens to Control Prpoerty Taxes and Cut Government Waste
  • Citizen Leadership Service- New Opportunities to Serve on Government Policy Boards under the Citizen Service Act.
  • Citizen Control of Political Parties- Exploring the New Party Democracy Act
  • Citizen Journalism- A Cure for Closed Door Government

Sign up online now!
Car Pooling available! Contact us 732-548-9798×2

Two new InJersey towns launch: Woodbridge and Morristown

March 15, 2010 in Site News by Ted Mann

While the recent foul weather has certainly put a damper on things in the garden state, there is one positive thing to come out of the last couple days. Two actually! Over the last few days we’ve rolled out two new InJersey sites devoted to Woodbridge and Morristown

The former is headed by Home News Tribune reporter Sergio Bichao, while the latter is being spearheaded by Daily Record editor Jim Namiotka and his team.

We hope you register to join these new sites and if you’d like to become a regular contributor, or just have questions about the site, please email Ted Mann, our site administrator.

Introducing the InJersey Activity Stream

March 10, 2010 in Site News by Ted Mann

InJersey has had a few upgrades lately, the most notable of which is the new interactive activity stream. If you’ve ever used social sites like Facebook and Twitter, this should be very familiar!

At the top, you’ll find a box where you can post status updates or information you’d like to share with groups you belong to. Very soon, you’ll also be able to post to community blogs you belong to. And around the same time we’ll also be incorporating these activity streams onto the town blogs (Freehold, Flemington, Cherry Hill, etc), so you can use all these neat features right there.

A couple useful things to know:
• If you use @username (putting in a user on the site — e.g. @colleencurry), the person you’ve mentioned will be notified.
• URLs in your posts are automatically turned into hyperlinks.
• You can sort the new activity stream using the “Filter” dropdown (e.g. show only your friends, or only your groups)
• You can reply to other items in your activity stream by clicking the “reply” button next to each item.
• Click on “Favorite” to save an item to your favorites list for future viewing.

For those curious about how this came about, the activity stream is one of the key new features of BuddyPress 1.2, which is a WordPress plugin that InJersey is built on. We plan to make even more use of it in the coming months, and use it very prominently on the site, as this is, we believe, a much easier path for our users to submit their own content.