Fish fry map: Great reader-created journalism

February 25, 2009 by Kurt
Filed under: social media 

I woke up this morning to find the embodiment of what reader-generated journalism can be on the home page of my company’s web site: On the morning of Ash Wednesday, I found a reader’s Google map showing where the church fish fries will be — and inviting other readers to contribute.


View Larger Map

If this doesn’t demonstrate the power of the community in the conversation about news, nothing does.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s web site, STLtoday.com, includes a forum called “Eat at Joe’s,” moderated by food writer and restaurant critic Joe Bonwich. A reader who calls himself named Brian Dunn, who goes by “LindnwdpkRocks,” posted a link to the map as a thread on the forum. He added, “I’m not sure if anyone can edit/add new points, but if you leave a comment with the church name, address I’ll make the update. I started with South City since I’m most familiar with the area.

He posted that shortly before 5 p.m. on Shrove Tuesday. By the time I saw it at 9:30 a.m. today, another 17 people had posted something — most with information about more fish fries.

::Update:: I heard from Brian. He says he’s a software enginer at Northrop Grumman and writes, “I was surprised at how many views it had gotten already this morning. I was actually reading a thread in the Current Affairs forum yesterday where someone was asking about churches that host a good fish fry.”

I have a background in geography and I specialize in web based location-aware/mapping applications, so I generally think in terms of where things are located and I really like to eat. Putting the fish fries on a map just seemed like the thing to do.

Bravo, Brian.

::Update:: I should mention, by the way, that STLtoday also linked to its calendar listings that included fish fries (which are also entered directly by the people who want their events listed).

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Comments

View Comments on Fish fry map: Great reader-created journalism

  1. RaiulBaztepo on Sat, 28th Mar 2009 7:43 pm
  2. Hello!
    Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
    PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
    See you!
    Your, Raiul Baztepo

  3. ClubPengiunCheatCodes on Tue, 11th Aug 2009 7:47 pm
  4. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful and beneficial to your readers.

  5. ClubPengiunCheatCodes on Wed, 12th Aug 2009 2:47 am
  6. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful and beneficial to your readers.

  7. Swing Trading on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 3:52 am
  8. Interesting post. I have just bookmarked this at stumbleupon. Others no doubt will like it like I did.

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