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Link: Earthquake stops rides at Disneyland I was covering Disneyland and tourism news when a 5.4 magnitude quake shook near north Orange County July 29, 2008. After the Register’s north county bureau stopped shaking the staff split up to cover their respective beats and I headed out to Disneyland. The link above points to the blog post I wrote summing up the post-quake environment at the happiest place on earth. I covered the story live via my iPhone – e-mailing in images and information for the blog and main quake story.Read More →

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Link: For shorter lines, visit Disneyland early or late in the day Something I learned through my work on the Around Disney blog is that user participation is key. Respecting the community and taking oneself off the old-world journalist pedestal is key. On the blog “Your Tips” was a key way of folding in user content. Nearly everyone who has visited a theme park has come up with a few tactics or tips they employ during visits. Disneyland visitors are at the center of this group. In the tip linked to above a reader shares tips on how to find short lines in theme parks.Read More →

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Link: Around Disney Link: Sonya Smith’s posts on Around Disney In March 2008 the technology reporter returned from maternity leave and I was moved over to the tourism beat while that reporter went on maternity leave. I was given a project: build a successful community around tourism news. The blog I was given was called OC Resort. The highest month of page views was 10,000. The monthly average was 5,000. Many other websites had laid claim to the passionate and uber-passionate Disney fans. OC Resort was known only as a blog covering the politics of Disney and the city of Anaheim. I was given fiveRead More →

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Link: Mobile Moves I began covering technology in October 2007 when the Register’s technology reporter went on maternity leave. After a few months on the job, my editor Kevin Sablan and I began realizing the huge growth and future in mobile. After tossing several ideas around we settled on a crazy idea: to cover mobile applications. Mind you: this was December 2007. Apple did not allow apps to be developed for the iPhone until spring 2008. Sure mobile apps were around before the iPhone allowed them – but Apple made “apps” a regular thing. We were so early to the game that I was ableRead More →