As an idealab project, the members were asked to share five tools that we have found most helpful to our newsrooms. Below I'm sharing the tools we use often at The Middletown Press that have helped us in reporting local news:

Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) – A free tool that enables you to pre-set both Facebook and Twitter posts. We use this a lot at The Middletown Press, especially on the weekends, when we have minimal or no staff on duty. You can have up to five different things synched in one account and give staff members access to this account to schedule things in advance like feature stories or opinion columns etc. For Twitter links, the tool also allows you to shrink the URL right there instead of also visiting bit.ly.

Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) – Download the program and you can share big files quickly between computers while you are at different locations, without the need to log into a common server or trying to email files that might be too big. Our photo editor is now using this to file her photos from games or late meetings. Photos appear instantaneously on the computers in the newsroom that are synched up on the same account. It’s become an invaluable tool for us as it allows the photographer to file her photos on (or before) deadline and still stay at the event so she doesn't miss something that might happen after print deadline.

Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar) – Simple to use, easy to coordinate. We set it up using our Middletown Press Gmail account and shared it with everyone on staff. At the MP, we use this for our photo schedule. Each reporter uses a different color and can schedule assignments as needed. You can also copy/paste entire press releases into the details field to give photographer a better idea of what is going on at the event or how people’s names are spelled etc. For those with smart phones, you can get notifications of assignments and such directly on your phone.

Scribd (www.scribd.com) – Sign up for an account using your FB login. Use it to upload PDF files or Word documents that can then easily be embedded on websites. (Document appears right in the story). We use our copier to scan documents into one big PDF file and then you just email it and upload. Anyone on staff can be trained to do this. The trick is to train people to think “are there any documents that could go with this story?” - used for court documents, budgets, press releases, statements.

Cover It Live (www.coveritlive.com) – Great for live chats. The Middletown Press, The Register Citizen and the New Haven Register use this daily for our morning newsroom meetings (http://bit.ly/wJjpKy). You can set up several panelists/moderators to check and approve participant comments and the entire chat can be embedded on a website so anyone can join in. It allows you to set up a small profile – we have a brand Middletown Press account that we use if we host our own chat on our website and several staff members have individual accounts that we use during the morning meetings so people know who we are.