Adam Gaffin and Universal Hub

First of all I must note that I have been looking forward to Adam speaking to our Reinventing the News class for awhile. As I have mentioned many times before, it is always great to have blog entries posted on Universal Hub, because it brings up the traffic to my blog and it's also fun to know that other people were also interested in reading what I wrote, and following the link to read the rest of the story.

Adam talked to us about the website and how it came to be what it is today. One of the things that he noted is that he will almost always post stories on Universal Hub that are about the MBTA, or put in a better way, the ongoing problems and stories that arise with the MBTA. He also talked about how maintaining the website is a hobby, and he makes a small amount of money from advertising on the website. Adam mentioned if he were to ever hire people to help build the website more, he would hire people who could help with advertising. One thing that he noted during my interview with him afterwards, that he forgot to mention in class, is the French Toast Alert System. Found here, when there is a chance of measurable snow on the way, a little alert box comes up in the right hand corner of the top of the Universal Hub front page. It is described as such:

The French Toast Alert System has been developed in consultation with local and federal emergency officials to help you determine when to panic and rush to the store to buy milk, eggs and bread.

Currently, the French Toast Alert System is blue, which means guarded. The description for blue is "Guarded: Light snow predicted. Subtle grin appears on Harvey Leonard's face. Check car fuel gauge, memorize quickest route to emergency supermarket should conditions change." Adam often posts a link to go to a local weather page for the actual amounts we are going to expect. I pointed out to him in class Wednesday that snow was in the forecast for Sunday, and he changed the alert that night and thanked me in a post. No problem!