Dining guides keep readers coming back for more

Looking for a Thai restaurant that delivers? A Chinese place that takes checks? A pizza joint that offers a student discount?

If you're in Boise, Idaho, you're in luck because The Arbiter, Boise State's independent newspaper, offers a searchable online dining guide.

Like many student papers, The Arbiter uses a dining guide powered by College Publisher. It invites readers to search restaurants by atmosphere (family, fine dining, romantic, sports bar), location or cuisine using a College Publisher template. Some newspapers, like The Daily Pennsylvanian at the University of Pennsylvania, creates special lists like "Best Places to Watch a Game" and "Best Places to Go With Parents."

You don't have to use College Publisher to set up a dining guide. The Badger Herald at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's guide allows readers to search for bars and restaurants by district. The rival paper, The Daily Cardinal, offers a Bar Guide with daily specials.

The Daily Collegian at California State University, Fresno, invites readers to search for and comment on restaurants using a clickable map, powered by Community Walk.

Dining guides like these are fun and useful for readers and will keep them coming back to your site. Most are also interactive; users can post comments or rate the businesses listed. These kind of interactive features help build the relationship between a newspaper and its readers. And many restaurant guides generate advertising revenue.

If your paper doesn't have an online dining guide, think about starting one. Be sure to promote it in your print edition and feature it prominently on your Web site. Remember that the better you serve your community, the more your paper will be seen as a trusted resource.

Does your newspaper have a dining guide? Are you doing something new with reviews, reader comments or interactive maps? Share it by posting a comment here.

Princeton Review ranks college newspapers

We may not agree with the rankings or the methods, but The Princeton Review has come out with its annual list of “best” college newspapers. The Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill took the top spot.

The rankings are based on surveys asking 120,000 students at 366 top colleges to rate their schools in dozens of categories and report on their campus experiences. In addition to Best College Newspaper, categories include Best Classroom Experience (Reed College ranked #1), Most Beautiful Campus (Sweet Briar College), Most Liberal Students (Warren Wilson College), Most Conservative Students (Thomas Aquinas College), Biggest Frat & Sorority Scene (DePauw University), Top Party School (West Virginia University), and Stone-Cold Sober School (Brigham Young University).

The rankings are published in the 2008 edition of The Princeton Review's annual college guide Best 366 Colleges and online at http://www.PrincetonReview.com.

One thing to keep in mind: The survey only polled students at the “best” 366 colleges. My university, San Francisco State University, and thousands of others aren’t even in the running.

The Princeton Review came up with the college newspaper rankings based on the survey question “How popular is the newspaper?”

Not exactly scientific.

That said, here are the Princeton Review’s “best” newspapers by rank:

1. The Daily Tar Heel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2. Yale Daily News, Yale University
3. The Daily Pennsylvanian, University of Pennsylvania
4. The Hilltop, Howard University
5. The Red and Black, University of Georgia
6. The Diamondback, University of Maryland-College Park
7. The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University
8. The Daily Athenaeum, West Virginia University
9. The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
10. The Daily Collegian, Penn State-University Park
11. The State News, Michigan State University
12. The Daily Reveille, Louisiana State University
13. Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University at Bloomington
14. The Daily Northwestern, Northwestern University
15. The Duke Chronicle, Duke University
16. The Daily Cardinal, University of Wisconsin-Madison (or do they mean the competing Badger Herald?)
17. The Daily Texan, University of Texas at Austin
18. The Daily Orange, Syracuse University
19. The Independent Florida Alligator, University of Florida
20. The Battalion, Texas A&M University-College Station