Detroit News Labs

SpeedSearch helps you find content quicker

The Detroit News is one of a handful of sites that have been invited to test out SpeedSearch, a feature from Tynt Insights that puts search results at your fingertips.

The folks at Tynt found that most text copies from web pages consisting of five words or less were being pasted into browser address or search bars by users seeking more information on a topic. So they developed a web-page plug-in that detects a copy of five words or less. When you highlight the words and click "copy" (or use a control-C on a PC or a command-C on a Mac), a results window pops up instantly with links to related content here at detnews.com and elsewhere on the web.

The product is still in beta testing, so we -- as well as the developers at Tynt -- are eager to hear about any issues or concerns you might have. And, as with any beta product, it might not work everywhere all the time, and the appearance of the window may change as its refined leading up to product launch.

New Feature: A link comes with a copy

We've added a new feature to the site that automatically appends a link to content copied from one of our articles, blogs or forum posts to your computer's clipboard.

When you paste the passage into your site, your blog or an e-mail message, a link to the story appears automatically. It saves you a step and keeps us informed about how our content is being used. It's a win-win situation.

An example:

Detroit--The city has spent nearly $50 million since 2004 demolishing buildings owners have left to rot, but weak collection efforts have largely left taxpayers stuck with the bill, Detroit officials acknowledge.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100118/METRO01/1180360/Detroit-to-sue-eyesore-owners-for-demolition-costs#ixzz0czg0hpjT

Let us know if you see any problems as a result of this.

The Green Life puts down roots at detnews.com

Detnews.com has launched a new page, The Green Life, that focuses on environmental, energy and sustainable-living issues. The Green Life features daily tips on how to save money and energy and a blog, where users can find more green news and notes from the community.

Page Ones in print are back on the homepage

Wondering what today's printed front page looked like? Yesterday's? Find them now on our home page.

We've returned a frequently-requested feature to the homepage: Images of our printed front page and sports page. But these are better. You can click each thumbnail for a bigger view, then scroll through a week's worth of the front and sports pages.

Want more detail? You'll find links beneath each image allowing you to view that page in Adobe's PDF format.

This feature requires some fairly complicated code to get it right. As a result, you may encounter bugs from time to time. Please let us know if something seems missing, amiss or out of order. And keep in mind that the first thing you should do is clear your browser's cache to make sure you have the most current version of the style sheets and javascript files that support our site.

Readers like our new blogs

detnews.com has added several new blogs the last few weeks, while some "old standbys" show continued popularity and relevance.
The Detroit News now has more than 70 staff- and contributor-written blogs, ranging in subject from our popular Armchair Idol blog to several politics/elections-related blogs to crafts and sports ( Tigers, Pistons, Red Wings, Lions, etc.)
When we add a new blog, we're either plugging an area of coverage or providing another layer of coverage of a topic. For example:

• our new Tax Watchdog blog by Robert Snell, a Detroit News reporter who covers economic development, reports on those who don't pay income, business and property taxes.
• Living in the D is written by native Detroiters, Motor City transplants and others from Metro Detroit who work and/or play in the city about what's going on as they go about their daily lives in Detroit.
• Disabilities is written by community members with disabilities and others interested in raising awareness of and fostering sensitivity for those with special needs.
• The Breast Monologues is written by one of our page designers who was diagnosed with breast cancer at just 26 years old.

And many of our blogs - especially sports and entertainment subjects - really resonate with our readers, who fill up our related forums with comments and conversation.
Tell us what you think of our blogs and forums and if there are any subjects you'd like us to cover.

Get your mayoral news fix via RSS

Keeping tabs on the saga of embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick? We've made it even easier with an updating RSS feed of stories about the scandal.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It's a way of distributing news headlines and links across a variety of platforms, from standalone RSS readers, to RSS-aware browsers like Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, and even screen savers. If you're a regular user of iGoogle or MyYahoo, you can even add a feed module to your personalized page at those services.

> Click here for the feed, or
> Add it to your Google homepage as an RSS gadget, or
> Add it to your MyYahoo account.

Live Webcams: We're working to get it right

I wanted to take a minute to thank those of you who tried our online video webcast of the Steve Yzerman/Ken Holland event on Tuesday. I'm very sorry that many of you had trouble viewing our stream.

Live online video webcasts can be a tricky thing, especially for a newspaper. We're not equipped with the microwave relays or satellite trucks employed by our media cousins in television. They have the ability to instantly zap full, high-def pictures back to their studios where they can encode them for the web and make them available via wired broadband connections.

We're still experimenting with the media -- and without such facilities. At present, we're limited to attempting to live-stream over Verizon's wireless broadband network. Sometimes, as with the Tigers opening day webcast, it works almost flawlessly. On that day, we were on an open rooftop where our Verizon signal was a full four bars. On Tuesday, we were tucked in the back of the Hockeytown Café with barely two bars. I'm sure you know what that can be like with a voice call. It can be far more disruptive to a data stream.

We've chosen to continue to attempt to do these streams because we think they are of value to our readers. And each time we try, we seem to learn something new -- or at least discover something to do better or different. Sometimes it will work. Sometimes it might not.

We have another live stream set for noon on Thursday from Joe Louis Arena. It's to be a 1-hour playoff preview roundtable with a few of our Detroit News sports columnists, including Bob Wojnowski, John Niyo and Ted Kulfan, and maybe a guest or two from the Wings. We hope to be attempt some different technical tricks to get it right. We hope you might tune in again to give us another chance, or at least give us you feedback -- something that's always welcome, whether positive or negative.

Help us map Metro Detroit's potholes!

To try to capture the breadth of the problem of potholes on Metro Detroit roads, we at detnews.com have implemented a pothole map that you can help us fill in.

You can zoom in, zoom out, drag it around, and click on any of the potholes that others have entered to see more details.

And you can also submit your own pothole, including a picture or video and a description, and your phone number if you would be willing to have us contact you if we want more information.

Click here to see the map!

More detailed instructions on entering your own potholes are on the page with the map.

Check it out, add some potholes if you know of good ones (or really bad ones!) and as always, let us know what you think.

Threaded comments in blogs, forums, and articles

Over the past couple of weeks we have been refining the threading in our forums, so that we can tie comments to articles, blog posts, and other comments.

Today, we placed the final piece of new functionality for threading into the forums. There are now links after each comment that let you reply to the comment, read others comments in that thread, read other comments by that user, or report a post as being offensive.

So, while the forums still work the same way they always have, you can also now view forum comments a few different ways:

• If a comment has a link beneath its title that says "See related article", it was submitted in response to an article or a blog post. If you click either the headline or the "Read this thread" link, you'll be taken to a page that displays all of the posts on that article or blog post.
• If a comment doesn't have a link to a related article, if you click on its headline or "Read this thread" link, you'll be taken to a page that just has comments with that headline.
• If you click on either the poster's name or the "Read posts by user" link, you will be taken to a page that lists out that poster's comments, most recent first.

You also now can reply to a post by clicking the "Reply to this comment" button, and it will automatically submit your comment so that your post will be in the thread with the post to which you are replying.

Also, now, you can click on links in articles to view that article's comments, and in our blogs, you can see how many comments each post has gotten.

So, try this all out, and let us know what you think.

Coming soon: The next helpful forum tool we are working on will (finally) allow you to log in once then enter as many comments as you want once you successfully log in. We're hoping we'll have more to report on this next week!

Comments on articles are now just a click away

At the request of one of our users, we've made it easier than ever to find out what others think about the stories you're reading.

You'll now find, at the top of every story about which others have commented, a link to "Read X Comments," where X is the approximate number of comments that have been made on that story. If you follow the link, you'll also have the opportunity to express your own thoughts. This makes it easier than ever to participate in the Detnews.com community.

As always, let us know if you experience any problems with this new tool.