Entertainment listings, movie reviews

A few months ago, I was asked to come up with a strategy to remodel the What's Happening/entertainment section of kjonline.com and onlinesentinel.com. The idea was to redesign the site with a cutting-edge look and add exciting new content to attract a younger audience. We hoped to recruit some local hipsters and so-called citizen journalists to blog and to provide reviews, video and photos. But we've had to put this grand plan on hold temporarily, mostly because we lack the resources to develop and manage the kind of site the audience deserves. Until that changes, we'll continue to improve these sites as much as possible. If you haven't visited What's Happening lately, I think you'll be surprised by some of the new stuff we've added.For starters, we rolled out a movies section loaded with information for the film buff. Visitors can now access a month's worth of reviews by our film critic, J.P. Devine. You can also find movie listings from central Maine cinemas, film trailers, New York Times movie reviews and a DVD release date widget. We've also rolled out a new events page. Previously, the events listings published once a week in conjunction with the What's Happening print product, which is inserted in the Friday newspapers. That was great, except the listings quickly became outdated. Now instead of re-purposing the print listings once a week, we're updating the events listings on a daily basis for a more dynamic page that's worth checking more frequently. And if you have an event you want to list in our database, we've added a link for you to get that information to us. This is something we should have been doing all along. A no-brainer really, but it took us a while to figure it out. It's another example of the sort of re-thinking that we traditional ink-stained newspaper folks must continue to do if we want to remain relevant. If you have ideas or features you'd like to see in this part of the web site, or if you're interested in blogging about entertainment in central Maine, please give me a shout.