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I don’t want you to make this site your homepage. A few years ago it was all the rage, making sure there was a link prominently placed on TV station’s website that, once clicked, guaranteed we’d get a few more eyeballs every time you opened your Netscape browser.

Yes I said Netscape.

All that did was slave your browser to my website and perpetuate the old media mantra of “We talk, you listen” where I would do all of the writing, the posting of video, the building of content elements for you to watch, read and see but where I would want no interaction from you other than mouse click after mouse click as you read each story, viewed each video and clicked on each banner advertisement.

At some point we left the garden and started reaching out. It’s a no-brainer that you weren’t just visiting KXLY.com for your news. You go to other websites, locally and nationally, to get the news and information that matters to you the most. I do the same thing.

You can find me on Facebook, on our blogs, on our outdoor site, on YouTube, on Twitter and on KXLY.com. Wherever there’s an opportunity to reach out to the community and create connections with you that’s where we want to be.

Back when we wanted you to make us your homepage we wanted to make our sites – I’m referring to individual TV station websites – a series of walled gardens where you can get in and look around but we’d rather you not leave nor did we want you to touch anything or add anything to the garden. Just sit there, click around but don’t do anything.

The walls, brick by brick, are crashing down around the garden as the individual TV station website can no longer sustain the promotional power or the content distribution of a local media organization. In order to be successful we have to be able to where the audience is. Some of the audience is watching us on TV, but some can be found surfing KXLY.com, browsing videos on YouTube and many are chatting with friends, taking endless polls and playing Mafia Wars over on Facebook. And there’s probably many of them out there on sites or in places we have yet to spend time checking out.

We may not be able to reach out to each and every person in the community. We may not be able to get on to every platform or “It” technology or gadget but the point is if the community spends its time surfing local news sites then we need to be reaching out to you, wherever you may be, connecting with you, asking you what your concerns are, giving you a voice, making you a part of the process of sharing the stories of our community.

We don’t want you to make us your homepage anymore. We’d really rather be your friend.

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