Miscellaneous

  Thank you for considering WCCO.COM for an Emmy. The past year has marked considerable change for WCCO.COM as we continue to grow and find new ways to connect with people in our community. We are working toward creating more interactive ways for people to connect with us, using both rich media and new platforms to reach and interact with people.

The Bridge Project
Our biggest news interactive initiative was what we call "The Bridge Retrospective." This project was for the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis. It told the stories of those involved from several angles, including the victims, the rescuers, officials and the WCCO staff. The Flash interactive supplemented several stories featured on WCCO.COM.

Story: 1 Year Later: Voices Of The Bridge Collapse | Video
Story: Her Car Dangled On Edge Of Collapsed Bridge | Video
Story: Paramedic Recalls Public's Help At Bridge Collapse | Video
Story: HCMC Doc Recalls Helping Pregnant Collapse Victim | Video
Story: 911 Dispatcher Remembers 1st Bridge Collapse Call | Video

Republican National Convention
Hosting the Republican National Convention in our metro area offered us unique ways to spread our wings and try out new technologies and ideas just for the Convention. One of the most prominent throughout the four-day Convention was our "RNC Blog," which was a collection of the most up-to-the-minute updates about everything -- all in one place. Several different WCCO staff members contributed to the blog, often sending back updates via smartphones or even though text messages.  The blog was broken down into four categories -- so if you only cared about traffic, you could filter out what you didn't want to see. Web producers, equipped with laptops, Flip cameras and wireless cards, roamed the streets of St. Paul and sent back updates from street corners, the Convention site and from in the middle of protests. We also encouraged viewers to post their photos from the Convention and of the protests to our You+Report site, so everyone could see what it was like to be in the middle of a protest.

Live Streaming Player - Inauguration
WCCO-TV presented video of Barack Obama's Inauguration like no one else in the Twin Cities this year. In cooperation with our CBS group, we developed a high-definition video player where users could switch between one of seven different streams on that day. The right rail also featured live Twitter updates from producers and reporters in Washington D.C. on their experiences and observations.

2008 Election Night
Election Night was a huge night for WCCO -- little did we know the election would still be going on in June! In addition to streaming from each of the main campaigns' headquarters, we put together an online-only chat/Webcast with our on-air talent, political bloggers and one of our WCCO.COM producers serving as a Web site expert, guiding people to all the elements on our Web site, which included live election results, an updated electoral college, live updates on reporter Jason DeRusha's blog, live video from CBS News and CBS Radio. We worked with a local developer to put together interactive precinct-by-precinct maps showing vote totals and color-coded results early the next day.

Inside The Box
Inside the Box is a TV-to-Web-to-TV initiative to get users to interact with WCCO.COM but also to complete the circle and watch TV. At noon, we announce what our topic will be for the day, and invite users to share their opinions. We've talked about everything from geese, to Michael Phelps to smoking while driving kids to balancing the state budget. At the end of the show and in later newscasts, we then read some of the comments on the air -- so people can see what they said online, on TV.

Jason Cam
Every day at 4 p.m., you'll find reporter Jason DeRusha at his desk, holding what he affectionately calls his "Daily Press Conference". In reality, it's Jason, a Web cam and a cast of newsroom characters streaming live from his desk and chatting with anyone who wants to drop on by and pick Jason's brain. The cam's on nearly all the time -- but Jason's committed to being there every afternoon, at the very least. (Hey -- reporters can't always sit at their desks -- but when he is, he's also on Twitter, Facebook and of course, keeping up with his own blog.)

Connecting With Viewers Where They Are
We're also working to reach out to our viewers on whatever platform they're using -- and this year we've launched three new ways for people to connect with our brand. In addition to revamping our Facebook and Twitter pages, we launched a brand-new mobile Web site and created an application for the iPhone, which is available for free through the iTunes store. (In case you don't have an iPhone handy, here's a few mock-ups of what the WCCO iPhone app looks like: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 )

Thanks for taking the time to check out our site and for your consideration!