C-Notes

CNati Reader Survey

2010-04-20T20:51:19Z

We want to thank everyone that has taken the 2010 CNati reader survey.

If you haven't done it yet, please take a quick second to fill out the 10 question form. It's completely anonymous and your answers help us sell the site to potential advertisers. We're currently at 950 responses. When we get to 1000, we'll close the survey.

Take the survey now!

Fox 19 Feature on CNati

2010-04-02T15:30:12Z

Fox 19 aired a story on CNati.com and our spring training reader fund-drive on March 28. You can view the video streaming below or go to the Fox 19 website for more information.

"Most Interesting" is an Understatement

2010-04-01T14:45:15Z

C. Trent Rosecrans has been named one of Cincinnati's "Most Interesting People of 2010" by Cincy Magazine.

You can click the clip below to enlarge or read the full text below the image.

Trent Rosecrans
Age 34, College Hill
Day job: Creator, reporter, host of cnati.com

Most interesting because ... Rosecrans is exploring the frontiers of new media. He came up with the "really ambitious idea" to ask his web site visitors to donate expenses so he can cover the Cincinnati Reds at Spring Training in Arizona. In three weeks, he hit his goal of $4,000, and went on to raise about $6,000, which he calls "phenomenal and humbling."

How did you get into it? The former Cincinnati Post sportswriter was a casualty of declining newspapers. After the Post folded, he worked for Clear Channel doing sports for WLW - but was laid off again. With deep cutbacks by newspapers, "The amount of original reporting has declined, but the interest has not," Rosecrans says. He hopes to fill the gap.

What do you get out of it? "I just hope to continue to earn a living doing what I love," he says.

What you might now know about him: "Most people would be surprised to learn how much goes into it," he said of his web site. If not for my best friend Lee Heidel (who designs it) I wouldn't be able to do this." Another surprise: "As a reporter I always complained about editors. But when you don't have them, you really miss it."

Worth noting: Rosecrans is still a member of the Baseball Writers Association, which helps him get access to players and games. "I still do a lot of reporting and writing in the traditional sense." And although he does blogging, "I hate the word."

CNati Makes CityBeat 2010 Best of Lists

2010-03-31T14:47:43Z

A very, very big thank you to everyone that voted in the 2010 Best of Cincinnati poll hosted by CityBeat.

CNati was the staff pick for best online sports fix. CNati was also well-represented in the reader picks, coming in #2 for best journalist (C. Trent Rosecrans), #2 for best Twitter feed (@ctrent) and #3 for best website (CNati.com).

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. You can view the 2010 Best of Cincinnati lists at Citybeat.com.

Vote for CNATI in Best of Cincinnati 2010

2010-02-10T16:43:43Z

At CNati, we've made some great strides in the past few months.

We've proven that we can provide stellar local sports coverage with minimal resources. We've assembled an amazing roster of photographers that beat our competition at every single game they cover. We've produced exclusive video and audio podcasts. Most amazing of all, we had readers step up and help us with donations when we needed them most.

Despite all of our great work and the passion of our readers, many people in Cincinnati still do not know about CNati. We need to fix that.

A great (and free!) way to gain additional exposure is with CityBeat's Best of Cincinnati 2010 survey. It only takes a minute to fill out, and you get to promote all of your favorite local businesses. We hope you'll consider CNati for best journalist (a repeat for 2009 winner C. Trent Rosecrans), sports coverage (Cnati.com), website (Cnati.com), blog (C. Trent's Thinking out Loud), Twitter (@cnati or @ctrent) or any other categories that you think we should be considered.

Voting closes February 21. Please take a moment and vote today. Thanks in advance. CNati readers really are the best.

CNATI via Kindle

2010-01-04T16:49:21Z

Did You Know?

You can subscribe to CNATI with your Amazon Kindle e-book reader. For the low, low price of $0.99 per month, you get the latest news from the main CNATI site delivered wherever you are in a Kindle-optimized format. No ads, no distractions, just the latest news in the best Kindle experience possible.

Click here to subscribe

Trying New Things

2009-12-31T17:50:48Z

CNati has been growing by leaps and bounds since my last update. More reporters, photographers, blogs and readers have joined our community. The feedback we've received has been uplifting and overwhelmingly positive. It's nice to know the hard work of our team is appreciated.

As football season draws to a close, we're turning our attention to planning for baseball and Reds Spring Training. While spring training in Arizona is a great chance for us to expand our coverage and break stories, it requires a significant injection of cash flow.

CNati generates most its current revenue from the advertising you see around the website. Our partners display what they hope are offers relevant to our content and community. Sometimes they're right (hello College Bowl Game Sponsors!) and sometimes they're embarrassing (I'm looking at you, Get Ripped!). We're working on creating new advertising relationships with Cincinnati merchants and companies with a sincere interest in local sports. That will mean increasingly significant ad placements and more clicks from potential customers. If you'd like to advertise with us, let us know!

Advertising is what keeps website content free. Our competitors have entire sales departments devoted to making new contacts, cultivating relationships and selling ads. We don't have that kind of manpower. Every dime that we spend goes directly into generating new stories and content. So, to help us prepare for spring training, we're trying something new: A reader-supported fund-raising campaign.

From now until February 12, we're trying to raise $4,000 to help offset our costs in going to Goodyear, AZ and covering Reds Spring Training. Trent cited the Sports Business Journal estimates that most news organizations spend around $8000 to send a reporter to Spring Training. We're trying to raise half that. Part of our reasoning is a proof-of-concept (proving that we can do more than the big guys with less) and part of it is downright necessity.

CNati prides itself on being a sports news site. We use the word journalism around here a lot. That means that unless you see the word blogs in the URL or a story is listed in the Sidebars section, you're reading facts. Our focus is independent news reporting, not giving opinions or going off on personal rants. We've loaded our writing stable with award-winning, professional journalists who have proven track records in the field. Real news costs money. You have to be there: See it with your own eyes, ask the hard questions, find the real story and deliver the goods to your readers.

If you like what we're doing here, take a moment to wonder what it is worth to you. If you believe Cincinnati needs an alternative, independent sports news network, please consider supporting us by making a donation to our fund-drive.

CNATI Board Meeting, New Blogs

2009-10-08T14:39:02Z

CNATI Board Meeting Today
Today marks the first official CNATI board meeting since site launch. It's been an exciting few weeks and a formal recap of our progress is long overdue.

Agenda items include signing a stack of paperwork, finalizing our advertising rate sheet and mapping out coverage for the rest of football season.

It will be great to see Trent and Michelle as always. We'll grab a bite to eat in Savannah's City Market district before they head further down the coast for a wedding this weekend.

New CNATI Blogs
I also want to give a quick shout-out to John Lachmann and his new CNATI blog, RedHawkey. John is a Miami hockey season ticket holder and his insight on all things Redhawks will be a great asset to our coverage.

Our second new blog is Crowd Noises. Written by CNATI guest authors, Crowd Noises brings the fan perspective to our local Cincinnati sports coverage. Dennis Kuhn's Ode to the End of a Season is an example of the more irreverent and fun fan-based content we're soliciting. If you want to contribute to Crowd Noises, send Trent an email.

The Ken Griffey Jr Effect

2009-09-22T14:55:59Z

One of the purposes of the C-Notes blog is to give you some behind the scenes access to the craziness that accompanies a new journalism start-up. I thought I'd start with a wrap-up of our first month from the perspective of site traffic and visitor statistics.

Normally, a website's traffic starts out with a crawl. Like any new product or service deprived of big advertising dollars, it takes a while to build your name, brand and reputation. CNATI's launch was a bit different, due to a couple of factors.

Our writing staff. C. Trent Rosecrans' reputation in the Cincinnati market guaranteed us some level of early promotion. His "not-a-blog" was read daily by over 2,000 people hungry for news and asides on their favorite teams. To Trent's credit he also fed them excellent music recommendations and pop-culture artifacts for the bowels of the internet.
Our content. The biggest comment (and compliment) we received in the opening week of the site was directly related to how much content the site had amassed before launching. A project like this takes more than software and hardware. It takes honest-to-god sweat in the heat of Bengals camp and the steady beat life of baseball.
Ken Griffey Jr. Our opening day "pop" was solidified by the presence of the prophesied hometown messiah that left Reds fans either proud, sympathetic or furious. Trent's excellent, collegial interview with the man too old to be called Junior showed the range, talent and scoops that CNATI was capable of on day one.

The Ken Griffey Jr. interview blew our first-week expectations out of the water. It was picked up by dozens of national sports magazines, blogs and newspapers from Cincinnati to Seattle. The referral links poured in and created what I lovingly call The Ken Griffey Jr. Effect. See that spike on day one? That's what I'm talking about.

Sure, it's a little disconcerting to see the sharp drop after launch; but how many start-ups can have that big of an opening day? Our goal is to make every day that big. We know we're on the right track, because as astonishing 14% of our readers have been to the site at least once a day since launch. Over 60% are meeting our in-house visitor retention goals. And with the Ken Griffey Jr. Effect in place, our target demographics are skewed to one-time looky-loos.

Trent and Scott are working hard to bring the best local sports news. Word of mouth is spreading and we're looking forward to an exciting month two and beyond.

Title IX: The Sports Blog for Girls

2009-09-09T02:45:49Z

I'm very proud to announce our newest blog at CNATI.com, Title IX by Michelle Martin. Some of you may know Michelle as C Trent's dedicated life partner; but please do not hold that against her. She's incredibly smart, an excellent writer and has the female equivalent of cajones that allows her to step up and ask the tough questions.

In her blog, Michelle plays the part of the ever-questioning sports-watching girlfriend that needs to know not only the generalities of sports trivia, but also the reason and history behind the data. Her first post, "What's up with the hair?", starts with the simple question of Domato Peko's locks and ends with an exploration of all things American Samoan and football. It's a great read.

Don't be put off by our immature, sexist labeling of Michelle's contributions as a girl blog. I have a feeling even the most seasoned of sports fans will learn a lot from her questions.

The CNATI Twitter-verse

2009-09-01T13:24:49Z

Twitter, the micro-blogging word-wide phenomenon, has a strong presence in the world of CNATI. Of course we have an official Twitter account, and our Sr Editor has an account. Hell, even I have an account (warning - lots of non-Cincy, non-sports action there). If you're one of the many asking, "what's the big deal with Twitter?", please indulge me while we take a trip into the Twitter-verse.

In these early days of CNATI.com, Twitter has provided 28% of our referral traffic. That means, if a website visitor clicks on a link from another site to get to CNATI, there was a very good chance that link was in a Twitter post (or "Tweet"). It's been an essential part of our launch strategy. This is how we're using this wave of communication to grow our audience:

In-bound links from our own Twitter accounts. If you follow CNATI on Twitter, you get as-it-happens breaking news, real-time highlights of live games and C. Trent's witty commentary on all things Cincy sports.
Got a Question? We'll answer it. By direct messaging or replying to a CNATI tweet, we will do our best to find the info you're looking for and share it with our audience.
Share content directly from the site. On every post at CNATI, you'll find a link to share the story or blog post with Twitter (or Facebook, or almost any other social service you use). This helps our stories spread to new audiences in your sphere of Twitter followers or those searching for news on the Reds, Bengals or other teams we cover.

But in order to take advantage of this good Twitter-ness, you need to sign up for an account. While you're there, go ahead and follow CNATI. Once you've signed up and are following CNATI, you can choose to receive our Tweets in several different ways. These include as SMS messages (great for getting scores and breaking news) or as push notifications on your iPhone (via a Twitter application). Check out the Devices page to enable SMS.

To recap: Sign up with Twitter. Follow CNATI. Get the best Cincinnati sports news sent right to your pocket. Retweet and tell your friends.

Cincinnati Innovates

2009-08-28T16:49:55Z

Let's cut to the chase. Running a website like this takes money. CNATI.com has dedicated reporters, photographers, tech geeks and editors working like crazy to bring you the best in local sports news every day. Right now, they're working for cheap, and in many cases, for free.

We're still finalizing our long-term and short-term plans for raising and maintaining capital. We have some innovative ideas that I think will provide sustainability and allow for growth. But our first step is to do what we're doing now: building a solid platform with excellent content.

A nice way to give us a boost in the early stages of our development is to get a bit of seed money. Cincinnati Innovates is hosting a competition for Cincy companies that are breaking new ground. In our case, we're trying to reinvent the publishing model for local sports journalism. If you think that's important, take a second and vote for CNATI.com. The Community Choice award gets $2000. In all honesty, that won't go very far toward our bills. But it is a boost to our egos and validation that we're doing something meaningful that people really care about. The site is in the running for one of the larger prizes (up to $20K) and if we win the Community Choice award, maybe we'll be taken seriously for one of the premier grants.

Thanks for reading, and go vote for CNATI.

Welcome to CNATI.com

2009-08-27T01:21:58Z

It all started with an idea.

Scratch that. It started with a crisis.

I'm not sure that there's any one person or thing on which the current state of journalism can be blamed. And, to be clear, it's not the journalism itself that's bad. Trained, experienced reporters are doing wonders with their increasingly limited resources. It's the journalism business that is the problem. But that's old news. Everyone knows that.

The newspapers didn't evolve. They didn't understand the new models of content and distribution. The internet scared them. Too many things were free. There weren't enough ads. There wasn't a place for traditional subscribers. Their old models weren't efficient. They were monsters of bloat and excess. Slowly, they are dying. And that's sad.

It's not sad because we'll miss having the newsprint stains on our fingers or rushing out into the rain to pick up the soggy mess of paper in the driveway. It's sad because there are fewer and fewer outlets for professionals to deliver high-quality, researched, unbiased, well written news and thought-provoking editorials.

The world of sports is feeling it (perhaps) more than anywhere else. Newspapers are slashing travel budgets and whittling down staffs. Major markets are now pooling reporters and resources or just running wire stories for their home town teams. Sports fans, the news consumers, are passionate individuals. They spend their time watching games, buying swag and talking trash. They paint their faces on game day or plot intricate fantasy teams. They know the emotions of victory as well as the stats in the scorecard. They deserve better.

And that brings us back to CNATI.com. Our goal is to bring expert local sports coverage to the Cincinnati market. Of course, that means Bengals and Reds. But it also means the local and state colleges and high schools. It means local reporters covering local teams. Stories you can't read anywhere else. Content that completes the fan experience.

Over the next few weeks, we'll slowly be rolling out new features. But every day, there will be new content to discover, new insights to glean, new facts to add to your arsenal. An informed sports fan is the best kind of sports fan. Smart and passionate.