May
5
Adieu
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under RFP Site News | 7 Comments
The lack of writing on this wall has likely served as the writing on the wall for this site, but for the sake of closure, I’m officially done writing on the Free Press — at least for the near future.
It’s been a blast. I appreciate the support of everyone who dropped by and particularly those who visited regularly and joined the conversation with your comments. Also, thanks to J. Chavis, C. Sherwood and W.R Davie for their stories and contributions.
I have no intention to take the site down, so if you scan the headlines on our News Feeds page, they’ll stay up. All of the old posts will stay as well.
Cheers!
S. Beaumont
Apr
15
SONO Slammed on Popular Website
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Business, Food and Beverage | 2 Comments
If SONO believes that there is no such thing as bad publicity, they’ll be thrilled to see that they’ve been featured on The Consumerist. The popular pro-consumer website receives close to a million visitors per month and has already collected 71 comments and 8,481 viewings since it was published yesterday.
More likely than being pleased with the coverage, they’re likely horrified - assuming they even know. As stated in the link and all right and wrong aside, keeping your customers happy is the name of the game, especially early on.
…”when you are new you are busy but 4 months down the road it will only be repeat business that keeps these places open and I will not visit there again. “
Links:
Consumerist story | SONO Website
Apr
14
Raleigh Chronicle Shutting Down
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Local Sites | 4 Comments
The Raleigh Chronicle has stated it will be shutting down on Tuesday, April 14th. A short paragraph on the site says that more details are to come, and that the paper has been purchased.
After serving over a million readers in the Raleigh community, the locally owned Raleigh Chronicle will close on Tuesday, as another newspaper purchases the publication. A more detailed story will appear on Tuesday, the final day of publication for the Raleigh Chronicle.
I’ll be interested to see who bought this and how it pans out. I could never really wrap my head around the Chronicle. In concept, I loved the idea of a local independently owned paper, but in practice, I could never really understand the paper’s position in the publishing/news community. They seemed to straddle the line between a local interest site with original stories and the mainstream news media who serve as a single source for local news.
Apr
14
N&O Mention
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Local Sites, RFP Site News | Leave a Comment
The Free Press got a little ink in this Sunday’s edition of the N&O. If anyone is visiting the site for the first time–welcome, and thanks for stopping by. You may want to peruse the Archives to catch up on some content of yore. We’ve been a little quiet of late.

Also, congrats to John Morris for his coverage. John runs the site Goodnight, Raleigh! and is very deserving of the attention. I hope it drives more visitors to his site and helps to fuel his efforts.
Apr
4
That was close
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under RFP Site News | Leave a Comment
The site was down for several hours today. Perhaps the recent rains infiltrated the sites flux capacitor. Rest easy, all seems to be well now.
Apr
3
ITB Site
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Other | 4 Comments
This guy cracks me up. I wish he wrote more often.
(warning: contains F-bombs)
Mar
18
MIA
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under RFP Site News | Leave a Comment
The only thing worse than not posting new content on the site is making excuses about it. I’m guilty on both counts. Sorry for the lack of new content lately. I hope to be back on the horse again soon after we move into our new house. For now, don’t miss the headlines. There are plenty of great stories coming across the wire.
Feb
28
Yet Another Way to Read the Raleigh Headlines
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Local Sites | 8 Comments
It’s been well documented that I like to scan the Raleigh headlines, and that I’m not alone–our News Feeds page is one of the most visited parts of the site.
Recently, my Netvibes account was upgraded to participate in the beta version of their newest release, Ginger. One of the key futures of this upgrade was something that I’ve been looking forward to for a while, the ability to create a “Universe.” Basically, a Universe is a way to share one of your pages, or a group of news feeds, with others and a way to create a central location of headlines covering a particular topic. Mine of course, is about Raleigh.
If you don’t like the way my page is set up, you can change it around to suit your own needs if you’d like. I’ll also be happy to adjust my page to suit your needs if you have a good recommendation. Enjoy.
Link: Raleigh Universe
Feb
21
Sign of the Local Housing Market?
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Other | 5 Comments
A) A tear down and rebuild, minus the tear down
B) A bad joke on your neighbor
C) An indication of the local housing market
D) A Craigslist scam
Either way, I wish I could take them up on it. Now if someone was just giving away a flatbed and a big-ass crane.
Feb
21
Wake Tech to Add Sports Teams
Written by S. Beaumont and filed under Sports | 2 Comments
Wake Tech is launching a Junior College sports program this Fall. The program will start with women’s volleyball, men’s soccer and men’s and women’s golf teams, and will add basketball in 2009 and softball and baseball in 2010. They’ll rent facilities early-on and will seek private donors to fund future development.
I think this is a great news for Raleigh. Besides making Wake Tech a more attractive place to go to school, it also creates jobs, provides a new athletic attraction, aids local colleges in terms of athletic transfers and creates a potential source of revenue for the school and other local businesses.





