What's SEO?

In the last few days, as the newspaper industry continues to implode, I've been invited by a former newspaper colleague to join a facebook group called "Newspaper Escape Plan." The description starts out like this: "Escape from newspapers while you can! At this rate, everyone will be laid off." I think you get the picture.

The backdrop to the invitation has been e-mails, phone conversations and text messages from friends -- some who still work in the industry and others who have been laid off -- who want to know what they need to learn to jump from the print game to the web world.

Note: I'm not an expert. What I've learned, I've learned -- as I did in print -- by doing. Yes, I was in charge of managing online projects and database reports for my last newspaper. But that doesn't make me an online expert by any stretch of the imagination.

At my job as editor at an Internet startup company, they asked me to come up with content for a reference web site, kind of a no-brainer for me. In return, I got a job that allows me to learn as I go, and I've done it by using my journalistic skill for adapting to change. As much as I miss traditional newspapers, this job allows me to do what I've been doing all week -- explaining some aspects of the web to former colleagues who are eager to learn, particularly now.

In the last few weeks, I've had a number of conversations about search engine optimization. They followed after I noted on several social networking sites in my "status" that I'm working on a project to improve seo on our web site, divorce360.com. Most of the conversations began like this: "What's seo?"

If you're going to make the jump to online, it's important to know what it is. So here's the layman (or woman's) version from a former print person.

Search engine optimization involves examining urls and headlines in web content to make certain that the Google bots (robots or spiders) that come to the web site find enough of the right words in all those things to push your content up to the top of the search pages.

So when someone searches on google for a term, let's say...divorce laws... or parental alienation syndrome...the stories on your site that include those words will pop up at the top of the first page of the search engine results.

You can also improve search engine optimization by doing what's called metatagging. It sounds really exciting, but for a journalist, it can feel like watching paint peel. Essentially, it means you pick key words from the story and tag the story with them. The purpose is the same -- so that the bots, which crawl around web sites, can examine your content, decide it's worthy of improved seo and then spit them out closer to the top of the search that a user does. You can do the same thing with key words in the stories.

Why would you do all that? Because if you improve seo, you can improve traffic. Simply put, if your content is higher up on the searches, users are more likely to click on it -- more often.

It's a lengthy process, to be sure. And it's not an exact science. Google has patented the way it calculates search engine optimization. So there's a whole industry of seo specialists who say they know the secret code to seo, but it's really trial and error.

It isn't exactly the kick you get when you're breaking a good news story. But once you publish the seo changes and see your content move up the ranks, it does feel similar to something else we used to do in print -- deliver the news to the readers who want it.

OMMA, Reference Web Sites and Good News

What do Babycenter.com, howstuffworks.com and d360 have in common?

Click here and look under finalists -- reference sites...

I have to say we're in great company!

On a Roll with Content Partnerships

Sometimes good stuff slips into our days and goes unnoticed until we wake up, mid-week from editing a bunch of stories and realize, wow, a sweeeet thang happened while I was buried under that pile. As a former print editor turned editor of an Internet startup, my translation of sweeeet thang would be:

1. Two days of having the same story on the msn.com home page.

2. And two days of two different stories on Woman's Day.

I guess it goes to show that some rules don't change, regardless of medium. Simply put, good content works.

D360 Partners with Woman's Day

The Holy Grail of Internet startups -- partnerships with other web sites.

How does it work? You provide content, which they pick up and use on their site. And then they give you links and credit, which drives more traffic to your site.

So far, our content has been featured on msn, AOL, so many newspapers and their web sites that I've long since lost count. And a year after eight months after we launched, we added one more partner to our list: Woman's Day.

Today, Woman's Day relaunched its site with a new design -- and some content from us. Enjoy.

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Family-Lifestyle/Relationships/7-Ways-to-Move-On-After-a-Divorce.html

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Family-Lifestyle/Relationships/How-Talking-Helps-Marriage.html

CNN, Mark Goulston and D360

What makes my day as editor of an Internet startup? When CNN quotes a D360 expert for a follow-up on the Edwards affair.

Men and women both have affairs, but not necessarily for the same reasons, says Mark Goulston, M.D., a marriage expert at Divorce360.com and author of "The Six Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again -- and Stay There." While men often break their marriage vows for reasons that include ego, a need for adulation and sometimes narcissistic behavior, he says, women tend to be tempted for different reasons.

"Women more often fall in love [with someone else] to feel adored and with a promise of protection and to ease pain," Goulston explains.

Gotta love MSN

Today's home page.

Internet Startup Reaches 10,000 members

Less than a year into the life of our Internet startup, we reached the 10,000 mark today. That's 10,000 people who have signed up to become part of the community of divorce360.com, the Web site we launched in December 2007.

As a former newspaper editor who hasn't much background in the social networking, it's taken me a while to become facebooked, linkedin and twittering regularly. But all of those things are now part of a routine day. Who knew it would take a few months to become a social networking junkie. Based on what's happening on our site's community, I'm not the only one.

In January, reporter Kim Hart of The Washington Post wrote a story about a new trend -- "social-networking sites have popped up to cater to specific interests, backgrounds, professions and age groups." Our site was one of several niche content sites named in the article.

Today, Paula Sirois, vice president for marketing for our site, said: "It speaks to the overwhelming need to connect, relate and find help." I couldn't agree more.

Another Good Week

A good week at an Internet startup that offers niche online content is simple. Some media outlet or another picks up your stories and runs them in their publication or on their web site. This week's highlights include:

1. mainstreet.com picks up two stories off the site, rewrites them and credits our site.

2. Our McClatchy-Tribune arrangement pays off with another story published on sunherald.com, a web site for a newspaper in southern mississippi.

3. A large metro newspaper uses our site and a story as the basis for one of their own.

You gotta love that.

Redesign Isn't Just for Newspapers

Everyone needs a new look sometimes. That applies to publications as well.

As a former editor for the largest newspaper company in the United States, I've done my fair share of redesigns. After 20 years in the industry, it was almost a given. Early in my career, it happened when new editors came into the room and decided their newspaper looked a little dated. Later, as circulation dropped steadily as readers moved online, it seemed they came with more frequency.

The big newspaper redesign news this week: an updated look at the Orlando, Fla., Sentinel, with another in September to follow at its sister paper, The Chicago Tribune. The idea is to re-engage readers in the print product as a way to maintain readership at a time when the industry is struggling nationwide.

In my career, I've helped or directed redesigns at newspapers like The Venice, Fla., Gondolier, The Tribune in Coshocton, Ohio, The Times Recorder in Zanesville, Ohio, and the News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla.

In the last year as an editor at an Internet startup, I've realized that similar redesign principles apply online. The only thing that's different is that you can use traffic as an indicator for what works for readers -- and what doesn't.

Since launching the web site in December, we have listened to reader comments about usability and watched the traffic ebb and flow and come up with ways to address any issues along the way. On Friday, after weeks of work behind the scenes, we relaunched with a new look for the home page.

It's cleaner, simpler and easier to understand. And finally, it's here, so I share. I'd love to hear your comments. So feel free to e-mail me at marisa@smallponds.com and let me know what you think.

What Works at a Startup

You gotta love working at an Internet startup. Some weeks -- no matter how many newspapers , hometown or otherwise, are laying off employees -- you wonder why you left the corporate bandwagon. And then there are weeks like this one, where you wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

This week what worked at a startup?

1. The Mice Played.
Waiting until the office coffee runs out and the boss is on vacation to order -- ohmygawd -- completely NEW coffee flavors like "Timothy's German Chocolate Cake" or "Gloria Jean's Swiss Chocolate Almond."

And then expanding into a whole new realm --- tea. My afternoons are now spent drinking "Timothy's Cranberry Twist Green Tea," or "Celestial Seasonings Mandarin Orange Spice" while some cranky guy with a Southern drawl stomps around in the background complaining, "It smells like a Baaa-k-ree in here."

2. Willie. Willie. Willie.
There's something about walking into a room every morning and having someone -- ok some dog -- so excited to see you that he almost knocks you to the floor. It's just plain good for the soul -- even if he is a trash picker.

3. Getting a Little Help from my (Old) Friends.
Signing a contract with McClatchy-Tribune (good old-fashioned newspaper companies) that allows your stories on the wire service and, within days, getting some play on newspaper sites all the way across the country.

Now, that's what I call the power of the press.

A Positive about Newspapers

With all the bad news about the declining newspaper industry, it's tough to find something positive to say when you're wrapped up in it. Declining profits, buyouts, newsroom cutbacks. You name it, the industry has seen it all in the last few years.

But after about a decade as a Gannett newspaper editor, I've spent almost a year on the other side of that fence -- working for an Internet startup company, developing a Web site and assessing the content's connection to the readership.

Part of the job is to search for partnerships with other news organizations interested in offering our stories on their sites. The more partners, the more they use your content. The more they use your content, the more the traffic builds. It's a pretty basic way to build online readers.

While our stories routinely get picked up by msn.com (Yesterday, our content was on the home page.) and other online sites, we've been searching for another way to increase traffic online -- through a partnership with newspapers.

Why? The CEO of our company, Cotter Cunningham, explains it by using his previous experience at bankrate.com, which built its traffic not just through its online partnerships but also through its partnerships with traditional print products. The more newspapers picked up the content, the more the online traffic increased.

This week, we signed a contract with McClatchy-Tribune to provide relationship content on its wire service to newspapers around the country. For me, it's an interesting twist. After spending years in the newspaper industry moving from print to online, I now work for an organization that's moving from online to print.

Funny how the world works. For all the bad news about the newspaper industry's decline, it's still offers something of importance to other mediums. Newspapers provide readers. It's just that simple.

Learning More about your Readers

I'm not a natural to online social networking. To be honest, I was always too busy to connect with people online when I'd rather do it in person.

After leaving my traditional newspaper job, I realized I needed to learn more about it. Even though many of my responsibilities in print had turned digital, there's something about joining an Internet startup that will force you into learning the details of something you only know on the surface.

Almost a year later, I'm facebooked, linkedin and twittering away. Aside from the connections and reconnections, both personal and professional, it's become even more important to me as a the content manager. I'm using the social networking part of our site, divorce360.com, as a way to assign stories that readers are talking about in groups, writing about on their journals or asking about in our polls.

Also based on my experiences, I've been involved in the discussions about how to improve the social networking part of the site. We eventually came up with an easy-to-use question and answer format that allows readers to share the details of their personal relationship story with their friends in the community.

Last week, after some weeks of editorial and technical tweaking, we rolled out the latest addition to the site. We sent out a link to the site addition in late-week e-mail to users, who have been filling them out ever since.

In addition to their story, the new page also gives users a chance to offer relationship tips to others, which we'll eventually cull to use in another form to enhance the site's content.

As I wrote in the e-mail introduction: "No matter where you are in your relationship, you can also offer advice to others about what you've learned so far. And you can read what others have learned along the way as well. By sharing your story, you can help yourself to move forward to a new and better place. And your story can help others do the same."

And isn't that part of what social networking is all about?

A Good Week at a Startup

What's the definition of a good week at a startup Internet company?

Several radio talk show interviews, an article in Adweek and a discussion with a major news company about distributing content from our Web site.

These are the days that you just know -- you're making a difference for the reader. And isn't that what good journalism is all about?

Will Internet Portals Invest in Newspapers?

The most interesting thing I've seen in a long time about newspapers was a video on Yahoo! Finance. In it, Todd Harrison, CEO of Minyanville.com, who suggested that online portals buy large print companies like Gannett, my former employer. The idea of "Content as King," isn't news to a veteran newspaper editor like myself. Nice to see someone in the financial world with the same understanding.

I e-mailed the video to a number of newspaper friends, one of whom asked me what I thought would happen if such a deal emerged. As the editor of a startup company for a niche product, I think there's a real possibility in the idea. Given the media partnerships that emerge online, (msn.com, for example, using content from our site and links to it), it seems like a sound idea to maintain a steady stream of content that could be reused online from the original source -- the newspaper.

Until newspapers don't have any readers anymore, there's still income -- albeit much less of a profit margin than in the past -- that comes from the print product and the traffic from its online publications. So an online portal could maintain the newspaper's circulation until it becomes a financial liability and still get the benefit of great journalism.

These days, given the state of the struggling newspaper industry, the idea looks appealing indeed.

Reimagining Newspapers

If newspapers worked the way they did in my brain:

1. Their Web sites would aggregate the news for a big, breaking story so if I went to their sites I wouldn't have to look at other sites in the region for stories on the same topic. I'd get short fat graph-introductions to stories on other news sites. I'd know it was a good read, because you told me so by showing me it was there. And the next time something big happened, I'd come back again -- and again.

2. Newspapers would look at their Web sites as a way to start as many regional or national online niche products as they could handle, given they keep downsizing their newsrooms. A place like Delaware, for example, would have a sister Web site for beaches or tax-free shopping or incorporation information for businesses. Fort Myers would offer a Web site for midwesterns who wanted to retire to the area, including a database of such information as movers in my area, property tax information and home insurers and rates -- so I didn't have to look around for this stuff on a bunch of other sites. (I worked in both places, just for the record.)

3. Local stories would be on incorporated into a map as well as just listed on the Web site by what time it happened. Then I could decide if I wanted to read the content by its closeness to my home or my work as well as just by a good headline. It would be really interesting if, as part of this effort, citizen videos of breaking news could be downloaded onto these maps as part of the interactivity for my geographic area of interest.

4. Sports departments would link previous stories on particular teams, so that I could read the stories that ran before about this particular story. They would use their archived profiles and statistics on a particular sport, encyclopedic information in a Wikipedia-like format if you will, as links in every story so if I would have every piece of information at my fingertips. And they'd add some kind of social networking, so I can hang out online with folks like me -- who liked the same teams.

5. Newsrooms would use their historical knowledge of the community and put that into some kind of Wikipedia-like database of information that allowed readers to learn about the area through their links to local stories as well as through just browsing on topics of interest. (Ok, I've mentioned this one before, but it has a long tail so I will mention it again.)

6. Directed the conversation on particular topics -- think msn's moneycentral -- by asking a few pointed questions about stories you've written that would engage in serious discussion, offer suggestions or tips and be another place to develop content that could be linked to the original story or new stories on the topic as they were written.

7. Think of each story not as a one-dimensional, one-time only piece that would be finished once the editor moved it to the desk. Instead, it would be interesting if newsrooms thought of every story as a container of endless possibilities for content that -- over time with links, videos, photos, maps -- offers the kind of depth that the print product has slowly whittled away at over the last few years.

Imagine.

Yahoo Can, Newspapers Can't?

Yahoo can do this. Newspapers can't?

See previous blog entry. Enough said.

Wikipedia, Collective Knowledge and Newspapers

A few years ago, I sat in a meeting with an editor and argued that we should start a local version of Wikipedia. The idea was simple. We could remain the historical knowledge of the community by using our Web site to help us.

Given that we were focusing on how to improve our online content, this new element, I thought, would offer something that people would come back to over and over again. (As an example, just consider Joe Biden’s folks trying to rewrite his political history with plagiarism.)

I figured it would be a cross between the newspaper archive and refrigerator journalism. Unless you’re from a particular region, state or community, you’re probably not going to go searching for this kind of stuff. However, school kids, locals and folks who need term paper topics for college might find it handy. It was, I believed, another way to chronicle the area’s history. And a new way to look at our jobs as journalists.

The idea was shot down for a number of reasons, including: The newsroom didn’t have the staff to maintain it; There was an unwillingness to open up the project to the community; There seemed no way to connect it to our online efforts; and most importantly, at a time when newspapers were struggling financially, it would compete with the idea that people would pay for old newspaper stories in the newsroom's archives.

Back then newspaper companies around the United States were struggling to keep readers from dropping their print subscriptions. They’re still struggling now, even though they've all changed their focus to online.

I must be honest. I’m part of the problem. I used to read a print newspaper every day. Several of them. I used to collect them on vacations so I could see what my colleagues were all doing and how well they were doing it. I used to think I’d never do anything but work for one. But today, I have a job at an Internet startup company, and if it weren’t for my parents, (and my boss who still gets the NY Times daily for work) I would rarely read a printed newspaper.

My parents are not the norm. They don’t own a computer or know how to use one. In fact, they weren’t sure what I did when I worked for one. And now that I work for a Web site, I might as well be working on another planet.

I, on the other hand, have a laptop at home connected to the laptop at work. I have a laptop at work connected to RSS feeds from around the world. I read more news online than I ever did when I collected newspapers to read. And my Blackberry connects me to everything, all the time, even in traffic. Not a day goes by in which I don’t know what’s happening, when it’s happening, updated by news alerts. So by the time the newspaper arrives at my doorstep every morning, I’ve heard it all several times over.

The only time I check the news is when it’s breaking. For example, when the recent shooting at a Wendy’s restaurant occurred down the street from where I live, I went to my local newspaper’s Web site to check out the coverage. I was able to share the name of a person in the restaurant at the time with an editor in another part of the state where that person was from – helping an editor in a newsroom I used to work in get a local angle to a story that got national attention.

I have, unfortunately, become the reader I wanted so badly to attract when I was working in newspapers, which circuitously gets me back to my point.

If we want to attract readers to newspaper Web sites, we have to be more than we have become. And one of the things I think we lost along the way was our commitment to being the historical memory of our communities. Between the buyouts and the layoffs, employees with years of experience in their communities no longer work at a place where they can share their knowledge with readers.

So here’s a suggestion. Give up your paid archives. If you were making the kind of money from them you needed, you wouldn't be laying off folks in the newsroom. And because I'm the kind of news person who hates telling you what to do without offering to make it better, here's an idea to consider.

Set up a Wikipedia for your community with topics based on the beats that are important to your readers. Use the collective knowledge of your readers to build that historical knowledge for your news Web site. Then assign upkeep of the facts of those entries to reporters in your newsroom – or if you’re a larger newsroom and still have a librarian or two, they can help as well. Older reporters who might be annoyed by the new work could be swayed by its ability to become a community resource. And reporters new to a particular beat might actually learn something about their community before they go out to cover it.

Then, if you consider my previous blog on links, you'd be able to use it to give readers a deeper online content experience. Every time a name pops up in a story or a well-known court case is mentioned, you can use your community's Wikipedia. And if you're like the editors I have spoken with who have concerns about the resource's accuracy, you will know that your version has been fact-checked by your staff as part of your new media efforts.

In the end, you become more useful to your readers. And who knows? You might attract an advertiser or two along the way.

Something to Link About

The last few weeks, I've spent a lot of time talking about connecting the dots for readers.

You'd think this would be second nature to someone who spent 20 years in newspapers, the last decade as an editor and the last several focusing on online projects. In my previous position, I once published a real estate database on a Friday afternoon -- a promo to a traditional Sunday print piece - that received so many hits in the first hour that it crashed a corporate server. Professionally, that probably wasn't the high point of my career, but it was a rousing readership success.

My point is, I have some experience in online content.

Still, since I took this job as an editor at an Internet startup (which launched its first Web site three months ago), I've learned that I wasn't nearly as good at giving readers what they wanted as I thought. I know this because, every day, I get a report that tells me where I didn't connect the dots for them. It shows me where they went to on the site, how long they stayed and at what point they left. When you know that, you can see where you need to focus your attention.

Over time, I've learned that by connecting the dots (from story to story, from writer to stories, from source to story and so on), I can improve the numbers. For example, I took one story on the site with a few links. I added links to other stories on the site, special projects and outside sources. The story kept readers engaged for more than an hour.

Yes, that was one story.

And yes, that was one hour.

And so, as you can imagine, lately I've been big into links. My e-mails with reporters go something like this...

Link it up…More links please…WHERE are those links?

This week, an editor (and friend) who manages a mid-sized newspaper in a cold state asked me why I had become the link queen. And I tried to explain what I've learned in a way I thought might be helpful for him - and for his readers. I used an example of a story about hockey that was published in his newspaper and on his Web site.

To keep this experiment all above board, I must make a confession. I am not a big sports fan even though I have overseen several sports departments in my career. However, I do admit I did enjoy tailgating as a student at the University of South Carolina. And when I lived near Philly, I did see the 76ers play, if you could call it that. And recently I watched the Dodgers beat the heck out of the Cardinals before the end of the third inning in a Spring training game.

So you know, I could have picked any sport for this little exercise.

The hockey story was no different than any other sports game story I have ever read. Here's what happened at game. Here are some names of standout players. Here's what the coach said. Blah blah. (PLEASE NOTE: For today, we're going to skip Marisa's lecture on good writing as the foundation for getting anyone to read your stuff, regardless of whether it's published in print or online.) Anyway, the whole story might have been 15 inches long. So I get to the end of it, and look around. But I can't find what I am looking for.

There is no "Click here for more about the team", which I'm sure has been written before. No "Find more stories by this reporter", who obviously has written them before. And no links to player or coach bios in the story, even though there are probably profiles in the newspaper's archives, somewhere. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Not a single link.

Ok, now imagine you're a hockey fan. (Big stretch for me but I'll try.) After you read this story, are you going to stay on the site? Are you going to come back to read news about your team? Or are you going to find a Web site that does more than offer surface information on your team?

Now, (Forgive the cliché) put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine you're a newspaper editor. You spend every day struggling to keep your readers as they drop your newspaper and head online to read about their favorite hockey team. What can you do to get them to read your hockey coverage, if not in print then online?

(If you still aren't getting it, here's a hint: Connect the dots.)

But wait, I'm not finished. I have one more thing for you to think about.You're a newspaper editor. You're still struggling every day to keep readers as they drop your print product and head online to read about their favorite hockey team.

Now instead of using the hockey story for this exercise, use the entire newspaper.

It's definitely something to link about.

An Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks

They say an old dog can't learn new tricks. I know they're wrong.

About a month ago, I wrote about my "journalism dad" Don Moore, who had spent several decades working at the Charlotte Sun-Herald in Port Charlotte, Fla. He was my deskmate for several years -- a grump of a man with a big heart and an eye for a good news story. I used to tell people, "Don Moore could find a story in a crack in the sidewalk." And he could.

Last month, he got laid off in a round of cuts at the family-owned newspaper on the west coast of the state. It was just one more in a long line of layoffs at newspapers across the country. But because it was a small paper, it seemed no one even noticed he was gone.

Don started in the business when the writing tools of choice were a pad, a pencil and a typewriter. So in an economic climate like the one facing newspapers today, it was unlikely he was going to find another job. When I discovered he'd been let go, it felt like someone knocked the wind out of me.

So I wrote an entry in this blog, from a former newspaper-editor-turned-web editor, that asked the newspaper industry when it was going to find the answer to what ails it? And when it does find the answer, where will all the people like Don Moore be? You know the folks I'm talking about. They're too old for an industry that is struggling, if not dying. And too young to retire and sit out on a beach thinking about the good, old days.

After a few more days of stewing about it, I decided I couldn't sit around and wait for anyone else to come up with the answer -- because it may never happen. So I called him and asked him if he wanted to write for the web. Four weeks, a new laptop, a wireless router and some story assignments later, he had his first web-only byline on divorce360.com, the site we launched in December. And while he's still tryiing to figure out links and attachments, the same skills that served him in the newspaper industry have found a new home writing stories on the Internet.

Today, I got a series of e-mails from some friends I met when I attended the Maynard Institute a few years ago. All smart, savvy young professionals who fell in love with journalism and wanted to make a difference. The title of the string of notes was "another round of layoffs." And from newsrooms around the country, they e-mailed one-after-the-other about the various states of economic well being at their companies. It was not a pretty picture.

Given that I'm out of the traditional print industry for a time, I could only sympathize, send good wishes and hope for better days for them -- and for the profession itself. There was, in my mind, one happy thought. At least one of the fine newspaper journalists I know has been able to find his way to another job doing what he loves to do -- writing good stories -- in the new media landscape.

And that's got to count for something.

Making a Difference -- a Different Way

What's it like being the editor at an Internet startup? My former newspaper colleagues keep asking me this. And I've had to come up with an answer. So I asked them to think about starting a newspaper from scratch. While I've never done it, I assume this is what it's like. But I bet the conversations are similar to some I've had in the last six months. They go something like this...

Co-worker: Hey, what's the font going to be?
Marisa: What font? For what?
Co-worker: For the web pages....
Marisa: We don't have a font?
Co-worker: That's your job.
Marisa: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Co-Worker: So what's it gonna be?
Marisa: Well, I dunno.
Co-worker: Umm, you might wanna think about it.

As you can tell, I'm usually the one without the answers. And that means I occasionally make it up as I go along. Fortunately, I have had lots of practice at this --I've worked at newspapers. In my career as a print journalist, but particularly as an editor, I've been forced to "play it by ear" a lot.

For instance, I've directed the birth of a number of new -- if not long-lived -- products. You know the kind. One minute you're quietly sitting in a meeting and the next minute you're sideswiped by the Mack truck of an idea for a new product being slung by a manager in a flailing department trying to deflect attention from the fact that he can't meet his goals this month.

As an example, when I was a newspaper editor in a blue-collar, steel town some years ago, one such person suggested that we start a monthly Baby Boomer publication. And between the creation and the journalism, an understaffed, overworked newsroom of talented folks planned, designed and wrote a product that lasted....drum-roll here....a few months. Why? The advertising department just couldn't sell the ads to maintain it.

Another time I was asked to reassess the content in 10 sections and launch a new weekly section before my 90-day probationary period was over -- and do it without increasing expenses. A few weeks into the project, the only editor who was helping me quit to take a public relations job -- imagine this -- paying more money and working fewer hours.

I've even run two community newspapers 28-miles apart with no printing press and a joint copydesk in the middle of an area where a quarter of the folks couldn't read. One time, in the dead of winter, the phone lines and electricity went out, forcing the staff to put out two newspapers with battery-powered lights, a couple of gas generators (Note to former employer: The windows to the second-floor newsroom DID NOT open) and wearing coats and gloves to keep warm.

None of that, though, has really prepared me for being the editor of an Internet startup. It's not that I don't have the expertise or the background to pick fonts for web pages or assign stories to reporters or make certain they've got well written headlines when they're published. To be honest, it's the topic of the web site -- divorce -- that I struggle with the most as an editor.Think about it. What kind of content do you offer to someone who is going through the kind of pain that makes it hard to breathe? Sometimes the burden of that responsibility exhausts me, and I leave here wanting nothing more than to sit mindlessly in front of the TV for hours.

And then, just when I wonder what it is I am really doing, a friend tells me the story a woman who came to the site, a woman she talked to, an abused woman who didn't know how to get herself or her children to safety. And I learn of how this woman read a story on the site that helped her find the strength to leave.

And I am reminded of why I became a newspaper reporter so many years ago. Back then I believed that words could make a difference in the world. In the last few months (though not quite so young), I have recognized that words can still make a difference -- no matter where they're published.

And I realize I haven't strayed that far from where I started.