By Tara McMeekin
Associate Editor

Baseview Products Inc. recently introduced the latest module in its JazShak Web hosting suite of products, Community Tools.

The Community Tools module offers polls, discussion boards and interactive calendars to readers. Polls can be linked to stories or section fronts and they can be posted for as long as desired. To avoid “ballot stuffing,” the software only allows visitors one vote a day.

The Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator is using JazShak’s Community Tools module for polling features and discussion groups at its online presence, www.vindy.com.

Polls can be created from a Web page by typing in a question and up to 10 possible answers and pressing a button. No HyperText Markup Language coding is involved. Because polls are part of the site, the results aren’t taking visitors to another site as do many free polling services.

The Community Tools module also allows readers to give detailed opinions and view other reader’s comments as well. Discussion forums can be open to all site viewers or they can be set up so only registered members can post. Staff-moderated forums are also an option.

The online calendar feature lets community members post events to a central location. Events can be categorized to correspond with various sections of the Web site.

The Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator, which is independently owned, launched Vindy.com in January and is using JazShak for the site. The site began using the Community Tools module last month to add polling features and discussion groups.

The paper has not yet run promotions for the Web site — it has only listed the Web address under the A1 masthead in the print version of the paper — but claims site traffic is already upwards of 30,000 hits a week.

“We will promote it, but already the traffic is great,” said Jason Holmes, prepress and management information systems manager for the Vindicator.

With JazShak Web hosting, most of the hardware and software for the site is maintained outside of Youngstown, meaning less hassle and cost for the Vindicator.

“After deadline, the copy editors change the status of select stories. That’s all. It’s very easy,” Holmes said.

Because the Vindicator had never before had a Web presence, incurring additional overhead was a concern. JazShak provides everything the site needs for its community hub. Before launching the site, the Vindicator’s efforts had been completely focused on becoming 100-percent paginated, so there was never the time or staff needed to dedicate to a Web site. Holmes said another reason the paper was a late comer to the Web is that he hadn’t seen many papers turning profits from an online presence.

“In a way, it’s nice that we held off on a Web site,” Holmes said. “We could see what mistakes others made. We saw companies allocating too many resources to Web publishing, virtually creating separate newsrooms. Then we saw layoffs … at The New York Times, Knight-Ridder … very few of these sites are profitable. It worked out well that we took our time.”

For a monthly fee, JazShak manages the Vindicator’s content, hosts the searchable classified database and manages banner advertising, thereby eliminating the need for additional staff and additional computers. Holmes said he originally anticipated having to hire at least two additional MIS employees and he also anticipated that the site would have trouble keeping content updated.

“We couldn’t find an accurate reporting method.” Holmes said these problems were alleviated with JazShak. “Our customers are served a site that is as fast as possible from Unix servers and we get a dynamic, database-driven site that is easy to update for our editors.”

Besides the new community module, Holmes has been pleased with other aspects of the software as well. “The other features have been flawless.” Particularly, he applauded how the classified section has been handled. JazShak provides a progress report to the paper, which recently indicated that the lead-classified page is among the top four in page views.

In addition to the new polling and discussion groups offered on Vindy.com, other features are also in the works with the Community Tools module.

“One of the things we look forward to is an online archive,” Holmes said.