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>> 2 years in the life of neighborsgo.com

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7 things: Seven days, seven things. Catch up with this weekly "best of" feature on our Go Blog

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>> Meet the neighborsgo editors

Central/East Team (downtown Dallas)
Mailing address: 508 Young St., Dallas, TX 75202
Main phone: 214-977-8222 | Fax: 214-977-8517

>> NEIGHBORSGO: 25 RANDOM THINGS

1. One of our bureaus is located in a former funeral home/furniture store that was run by a gentleman named Glenmore Savage.

2. There never has been -- and never will be -- a "to" in our name. It’s neighborsgo and neighborsgo.com, not "neighborsTOgo" or "neighborsTOgo.com."

3. At 105 years old, Helen Rhoads of Rowlett graced the cover of the Sept. 9, 2006, Rockwall-Rowlett print edition. About a week later, we received word that Helen had passed away. Her family wrote to say how much it had meant to Helen that we had featured her on the cover.

4. The neighborsgo print edition is published by The Dallas Morning News every Friday in 18 editions that cover 39 communities. Neighborsgo.com covers 70 communities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, plus three entities: DART, Jason Castro and State Fair. (Stephenville is down the road apiece, but it was added in our bid to strengthen our connection with interstellar space federations.)

5. How many publications do you know that want to meet and greet their readers on a regular basis? We do. Neighborsgo editors are available every other month for a chat and a free cup of coffee at your local Starbucks. We're the friendliest big-city community newspaper with a small-town feel.

6. The Helpless Housewife has the most popular profile on neighborsgo.com. Whether being tackled by the Football Chick or clipping coupons with the Sisters of Savings, our “undomesticated Martha Stewart” comes through with a smile and, with the community’s assistance, gets less helpless with every video she shoots, blog she posts and column she writes.

7. Neighborsgo produced a special section, JasonCastroGO, and led a parade through Rockwall at the May 2008 homecoming of favorite son and American Idol Top Four finalist Jason Castro. Two editors stood on a stage with the dreadizen in front of 15,000 cheering fans and presented him with a “Jason Castro for President” editorial cartoon that ran in The Dallas Morning News.

8. In April 2005, we began as a 100-percent, user-generated newspaper called Neighbors. People e-mailed, faxed (!) and mailed (!?!) their stories, news releases and photos to editors, who then published their material in print. Some editors received between 100 and 500 e-mails a day, with multiple-megabyte attachments that often shut down their e-mail. If only we had a Web site where readers could post their material directly online …

9. Back in 2005, editors had to beg, borrow and “steal” relevant, community-centric material from just about any source to fill space. Today, thanks to neighborsgo.com, some editions receive at least double the content that we could possibly publish in any one print section –- all posted by residents of area communities -- and other area media outlets visit neighborsgo.com regularly for story ideas.

10. When we launched neighborsgo.com in April 2007, our catchphrase was “Find, Share, Connect.” The San Diego Union Tribune came out to study our “reverse-publishing” model later that year. When they launched their site, sdbackyard.com, their catchphrase was “Share, Connect, Find.” (PAUSE) As penance, we had them shoot “The Nation’s Fastest Chihuahua” contest in San Diego. (We actually did have a dog in that race.)

11. Neighborsgo.com/video is the only place you can see a 22-year-old man-child get schooled in table tennis by a 76-year-old Senior Olympian. Or an editor in an evening gown give The Price Is Right model search a spin. Or a “crossing goose” helping kids get to school safely. And, of course, an editor race the fastest Chihuahua in Texas. (Yes, the same one -– Cricket -– that raced in San Diego.)

12. Neighborsgo recently launched a regular Focus on Faith feature in print and encourages all area churches to share their good news on our site. (Now is probably a good the time to mention that popular pastor and best-selling author Joel Osteen posts regularly to neighborsgo.com.)

13. The first print issues of neighborsgo (then Neighbors) were published in 2005 before editorial employees had access to office equipment – including phones and computers. We added the “go” in April 2007, when we launched neighborsgo.com and redesigned and rebranded our print product. We had phones and computers by then, but were about a year away from laptops.

14. For the first three years in operation, our copy desk was located in the bowels of the labyrinthine Denton Record-Chronicle, 38 miles from downtown Dallas. When we would meet there with “The Others,” it was often in rooms that had a distinct Dharma Initiative feel to them.

15. The Go Blog is the official editors’ blog that is served on dallasnews.com, home of the All-Mighty Cowboys Blog and about 50 other blogs. At the height of Jasonmania, our blog made a strong run, pageview-wise, at the Cowboys blog but had to settle for 2nd place. (It was the day Jessica Simpson’s mother jokingly told a reporter that her daughter and Tony Romo were married.)

16. In 2008, 49 of the 50 top Go Blog posts were about Jason Castro. The single entry that wasn’t Castro-related was an entry titled “Thoughts About Rain.” To this day, no one’s quite sure what the post was about or why it was so popular.

17. With the help of Joe Warner and Nancy Moore, we proved to the world that squirrels can get stuck in trees. And remember “The Cake Bride” -– the wedding cake that looked like the bride? Yup, “she” was first posted on neighborsgo.com, too.

18. Neighborsgo is the most recommended “section” of The Dallas Morning News (per August 2008 Audience Analysis)

19. In January 2009, twitter.com/neighborsgo registered its 1,000 follower. Still about 113,000 fewer than MCHammer, but it’s a start.

20. The copy machine once fell through the floor of the neighborsgo satellite office in Rockwall’s historic downtown square. After that, the office was completely refurbished, the flooring was replaced where it had rotted, and The Dallas Morning News sold the building at the end of 2008.

21. Don’t get discouraged if you’re on neighborsgo.com and you’ve composed the most brilliant blog post known to man … only to get “timed out” and lose all your information. It happens to editors all the time. Advice: Never trust technology Save early (Word, Notepad), save often.

22. The reason we don’t allow “batch uploads” on neighborsgo.com is because we really don’t want readers to upload their hard drives to the site. We want you to share your experiences, but 10 photos of any one event is quite enough, thank you.

23. In February 2009, neighborsgo may be the only newspaper in this country that is hiring. Make no mistake: By collaborating with readers and contributors, we are turning journalism into a true conversation and helping redefine what a community newspaper can and should be in this digital age.

24. Neighborsgo.com’s ultimate honor – the official neighborsgo cartoon – has only been bestowed on two people: Jason Castro and Lindsay "The Beijing Blogger" Toler. Generate hundreds of thousands of page views for us, and we’ll make one for you, too, we promise.

25. Post your stories, photos, blogs and videos on neighborsgo.com, and your wildest dreams will come true!

26. You tell us.