redesigning lclark.edu

RSS

The Confluence of Content Streams (Our Twitter River)

One of the benefits of our redesign process (including the modernization of the technological underpinnings of the site), is that we look forward to being able to reuse content in new ways across our site. This is not a radically new concept on the web in general, but for Lewis & Clark it is a change that offers exciting opportunities for an improved user experience.

In the old days, interesting stories that were told one place, say the newsroom, had to be manually added anywhere else we thought might be worthwhile, like an academic department’s news page, and vice versa. If you wanted to read those stories you were pretty much limited to using one device, the web browser and accessing it one place, the static web page. With the rise of some pretty heavy acronym-laden technologies, RSS chief among them, the PubCom team is using the redesign to play with some new ways to deliver the fascinating as well as the day-to-day goings-on of the members of the Lewis & Clark community, both on and off Palatine Hill. Recently we have hopped onto bandwagon that is Twitter (Twitter Explained in Plain English) and are experimenting with directing some of our varied content streams, of Watzek Library news, of Law School podcasts, of our Newsroom, as well as items that come to us from the outside world, like google news alerts, into a united content river. At this point you can access it on our twitter page from your web browser, mobile phone, or via our new service, telepathic broadcast, (still in beta). Advantages: we set the stage for serendipity, practice brevity, and offer a less formal venue to let people know what L&C is doing as an institution. Our approach will invariably change as we learn more, and if you find yourself asking your computer monitor “Why?” out loud as you read this, drop us a line in the comments. We like to talk about this stuff.

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