I made a big mistake earlier today.  I announced proudly that someone was from State X when in fact that person is from nearby State Y and held a key public office there for a decade.

Ouch.

I want to clear the air right now and tell everyone that I'm sorry for doing that.  My excuse: I'm from California.  Enough said. 

Jay Rosen tells us: 

On Friday, Dec. 17, the News & Record, daily newspaper in Greensboro, NC, owned by Landmark Communications, announced that it was looking to overhaul its website (www.news-record.com) and enter a period of invention, including rapid evolution away from the standard newspaper site-- into more of an online community, a public square, or something equally "transformative" in nature.

The newspaper is actively looking for input, and comments are due by Dec. 24 -- Friday.

Newspapers have been very slow to do anything online that's different from...what they do offline.  The brand is so important, and the editor's role is so important, that papers can't imagine changing the "product" (and loosening the editorial reins) but branding it as their own.

Here's an idea:  how about (in addition to replicating the paper online, which is a valuable resource) having an entirely different community site that is branded separately but relatedly.  That might help management relax.  Then aggregate blogs, hold forums, have polls, have very-local-weather reports, review movies, have the best possible community events calendar, create (simple, low-barrier-to-entry) virtual worlds, assign stories collectively, have photo contests, whatever.  But in a slightly different voice. 

One model I like is the Time Out New York offline setup. It's got the voice of an informal blog, with regular columnists, plus all possible information about all possible events.  It's overwhelming, but I can imagine that the online Greensboro version might have a more manageable amount of information.  Time Out Greensboro plus The Aggregated Voice of Greensboro -- with revenue coming only from large concerns placing listings.  No subscriber fees or "premium" content that's hard to get to -- the friendly craigslist model.