Spectrum

Spectrum is the latest incarnation of the Spec's consistently abortive attempts at running a 24-hour on-campus blog. Initially, given the Spectator's blogs' troubled past, students normally mention Spectrum when discussing how long it will take for it to fail. Today, though, given the fact that Spectrum receives a comparable number of comments to Bwog (and the fact that the blog still exists), it seems like it's hear to stay.

Overview

Spectrum was launched on March 1, 2010 to much fanfare from the newspaper itself. The entire front page of that day's newspaper was devoted to promote Spectrum, with a letter from the editors explaining the new blog:

Somewhere along the way, Spectator lost that playfulness. Yes, we’re a newspaper. Yes, we have some serious work to do, and we should take that work seriously. But we’re a student newspaper, not the New York Times, and part of our charge is to keep in mind our fellow students. And that means telling stories in a way that’s fun to read. So we’re taking another crack at blogging. Unlike Spec’s previous efforts, this new blog, Spectrum, will be supported by a dedicated blog team, meaning that it’ll be updated around the clock. Our columnists, besides writing their usual biweekly columns for the paper, will be blogging as things happen. And the blog will be a fantastic place to put our best multimedia content—be on the lookout for beautiful HD video.

Spectrum is unique among the blogs of student papers in that it's feature prominently on the front of the paper's website. The main difference between Spectrum and Spec's old blogs is, like says above, "a dedicated blog team." The newspaper's old blogs were decentralized, run piecemeal by each of the paper's different sections. Spectrum instead has a separate staff (though many of those staff members work on other parts of the paper). Like Bwog, there was daily editors who run the blog one day a week.

Like the newspaper itself, Spectrum is divided into section. There are seven, and each are color-coded: Spectrum (blue); Opinion (red-orange); A&E (yellow); The Eye (purple); The Shaft (light orange); and Meta (black). The Spectrum tag is the general artery for Columbia-related news. A&E is arts-related content (at Columbia or around the city) that falls under the purview of the newspaper's Arts & Entertainment section. Opinion includes blog entries from Spec's columnists, webcomics, and less serious staff editorials (published on Fridays and called "Casual Friday"). The Eye is Spec's weekly magazine; on the blog, it mostly publishes videos and teasers for its magazine content. The Shaft reports on housing news and is for the most part up and running during the housings-selection process each spring. (The Shaft was actually part of Spec's previous blogging effort, SpecBlogs, and thus predates Spectrum.) Finally, Meta is meta-content: news on Spectrum and Spectator in general and advertisements for Spectator events.

Spectrum-Bwog relationship

As of October 18, 2010, Spectator's website has a Alexa ranking of 80,113 while Bwog has a ranking of 1,019,633. Those rankings, though, are for the entire Internet and not just Columbia affiliates.

Many people know about Spectrum because Speccies and their friends freely advertise Spectrum on The Bwog.

Sometimes (not known how often), they lie. For instance, on a 2010 Room Selection entry, user "Ben Cotton" wrote:

Important New Housing Info:

EC Exclusion suites floors 12 and 14 apparently do not have working dishwashers or refrigerators any more and will not be replaced this summer. This is a completely unforeseen mistake by housing services, but they say that renovations were not done in time and they do not have new/refurbished appliances on the way for these 2 floors.

Ben

-check out the spectrum blog

What was said in the comment turned out not to be true, though this comment could have easily come from someone pretending to be Cotton.

Bwog, for its part, created mild "controversy" when it deleted several comments referencing Spectrum in a post "Freaking Out? Free Roti?" on a post which was published one day after Spectrum was launched. The perceived censorship caused a bit of an outcry from Bwog commenters.

i am not from the same IP address, but i also think it’s sort of lame to delete comments saying spectrum is good when spectrum leaves up positive comments about bwog. it’s not really advertising if it’s a conversation, right? and don’t you want comments to be a dialogue?

However, comments were deleted if and only if they advertised the Spectrum. This business as usual for the Bwog, which normally deletes posts advertising other sites. However, to satisfy Spectrum-boosters, the Bwog has let Spectrum-centric comments stand unmolested.

In any case, many students read both the Spectrum and the Bwog, as both provide unique and mutually-beneficial aspect on campus life. Naturally, both Spectrum and Bwog occasionally have comments from readers threatening to switch to the competition when those readers think a post is bad.

External Links

• Spectrum Main Page