Recordnet.com tries to save Stockton’s Fourth of July
Who says newspapers aren’t embracing the Internet? Stockton, a city in California’s San Joaquin Valley, had to cancel its July 4 fireworks celebration due to a tight budget. Don’t worry, though — the town’s paper is using the web to bring a a little light to bummed-out patriots.
True, people can always watch a fireworks ceremony on TV, but that just isn’t the same, is it? On a national broadcast, you can’t watch those colorful rockets explode over the beautiful Stockton skyline. That’s where the web comes come in — Recordnet.com, the website of the Stockton Record, has unveiled an app called Fireworks over Stockton. It features a photo of the city’s night sky, and when a user clicks on the picture, a firework goes off! Don’t get too excited, though. The site also warns, “Launching several fireworks at once may cause the screen to run slowly.”
So light up the grill, pop open a brewski, gather the family around the computer, and discover once more that some things just aren’t as good when you experience them on the Internet.
(The Record, by the way, is owned by Dow Jones, itself owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Its website boasts some other apps that allow readers to have fun despite the bleak economic situation, most notably a feature that lets you try to balance the city’s dismal budget.)
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About the Author, Anthony Ha
Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.
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