I’m not sure what to make of this posting on the Clinton Herald forums that the Forums will be shut down on September 1. Newspaper management’s only public reply has been in the forums and it isn’t exactly clear what will happen next Tuesday. Editor, Charlene Bielema posted this on Monday, the 24th:
Yes, we have been notified that our forums no longer will be Hey Martha forums as of Sept. 1. We currently are looking at our options concerning the hosting of the site. We know our readers like the forums and we are doing our best to make sure that continues. I’ll let you know more as those decisions are made.
Charlene Bielema
Herald Editor
The Herald is owned by Community Newspapers Holdings Inc. a Birmingham, Alabama-based concern that owns a metric buttload of small market newspapers. As of now, it looks like they have moved to a new content-management and/or hosting service.
The original posting in the thread was cross-posted from the Norman, OK Norman Transcript. It appears that the Transcript will be moving to a more community-based blogging and aggregation model. Something that has been talked about as a new business model for newspapers. See Jeff Jarvis’ blog buzzfeed. Mr. Jarvis just gave a rather compelling presentation of a very similar business model at an Aspen Institute forum.
Regardless of the fate of the Hey, Martha! forums, I’ve been wanting to get some serious hands-on time with the really cool-looking website development and management tools from squarespace.com for a month or so now. We’ll this is a good chance. I’ve set up a community site called Aww, Martha!. If the Herald pulls the plug, there will be a place for people to gather. It is a $50 a month hit, so its permanence depends on a couple of factors: a) whether it gets used at all and b) whether it is needed.
In the meantime, feel free to play around and post some stuff. Membership is required but totally free and privacy will be respected. Aww, Martha!
