Poynter: Happy (online interactive) Thanksgiving
By Leah McBride Mensching, Wednesday 21 November 2007 at 17:32 :: Online/Digital Publishing :: #891 :: rss
For Americans who plan to stuff themselves with turkey, potatoes and pie on Thursday, before you head off to grandma's house, why don't you ask yourself what you can do to make Thanksgiving coverage on your news Web site more interactive?
Poynter's Al Tompkins asked himself that question, and came up with a several ideas:
- Include a travel mapmaker widget on your site for people to quickly map their holiday trips without having to go to Yahoo! Maps.
- Invite first-time Thanksgiving cooks to send video/photos of their masterpieces. Invite folks to send photos of food disasters, too. Readers would vote for the best turkey picture and the worst disaster.
- For people who have no place to go for Thanksgiving, have them send a photo of what they ate -- sort of a takeoff on the "airlinemeals" site that encourages people to post pictures of their miserable airline food. The most pitiful photo gets a voucher to a nice restaurant.
- A virtual blessing. Get some clergy of various faiths to record blessings for meals. Then the users can select which blessing they want to play before their meals in whatever language or faith they choose (Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian and so on). You could also record them on a phone line – "Press 1 for a Hindu blessing, press 2 for a Jewish blessing," and so on. I imagine people putting their cellphones on speaker and listening to the blessing from a well-known religious leader.
- Post a blessing. Record the blessing that was offered at your Thanksgiving meal and share it.
- Show us what you are thankful for in a video or in photos. No need for long text -- show us.
- Set up a turkey hotline using food specialists, celebrity chefs, nutritionists.
- Ask a shrink. Do an online chat with a family counsellor on how to minimize friction when the family gets together. What advice would that expert give to the single person who gets nailed every year with, "When are you going to get married?" Let people tell their stories of family gatherings gone ugly.
- Overeaters Anonymous groups are really active around the holidays. Find a group that meets on Thanksgiving Day. You might include a blog of folks who struggle with this for the entire holiday season. I bet it would be encouraging for people to know they are not alone in that struggle.
- How much does it take to walk off a Thanksgiving meal? Read it and pass the pie, please.
To view the full article, visit Poynter.org.
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