Breaking Promos puts small business in spotlight

As part of our increased focus on affordable and innovative advertising vehicles, The Bakersfield Californian has launched Breaking Promos, a Twitterlike tool that connects our audiences directly to small-business advertisers. 

Breaking Promos launched Monday on Bakersfield.com, and we're working to roll the feature out to rest rest of our sites on The Bakersfield.com Network. 

The think Breaking Promos ticker scrolls deals across the bottom of local websites. The concept is simple: Local businesses can log into our self-serve system using their Twitter handle, buy digital tokens that can be redeemed as 140-character promotional posts, or so-called Breaking Promos. Those Breaking Promos go live in the Twitterstream but more importantly appear in a ticker that scrolls at the bottom of our websites.

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Two popular websites embrace print offshoots

I wrote awhile back about Grantland, the superb sports and pop culture website operated by Bill Simmons and funded by his bosses at ESPN. The site has grown into a lively alternative to more traditional sports brands (S.I., even ESPN) but is now finding success by going traditional -- to print.  

I also want to highlight a cool project from Voice of San Diego, a community-funded news site that is now publishing a monthly magazine in hopes of increasing its revenue. 

Both are more examples of web-first ventures wading into the world of print, both for new revenue but also to extend their brands. 

The sleeve on Grantland Quarterly 2 doubles as a cool two-sized poster. Sweet!"Grantland Quarterly" is a collection of Grantland's best and most interesting content from the previous three months. 

Simmons is ESPN's biggest star online, although I can only take him in small doses. His greatest gift to Grantland, however, is ceding the spotlight to a diverse group of lively writers. Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell and Charles Pierce are just a few of the cast that make Grantland perhaps the most invigorating sports publication around. 

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Basque culture is focus of second Californian e-book

The Bakersfield Californian has released its second e-book, Louis Amestoy's "Being Basque in Bakersfield." 

The book shares a newcomer's observations about connecting with Bakersfield's large and vibrant Basque community. Amestoy, The Californian's digital convergence manager, is of Basque heritage but had little contact with the culture until moving to Bakersfield in January.

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