To say the least, browsing the web has become quite a different experience. We’ve reached a day where we don’t think twice to pull out our cellphones to look up a quick piece of information. “Oh, I’ll just Google that,” or “let me check Wikipedia.” We can do this in the blink of an eye and a finger tap of a screen.

But where does that put us, the college newspapers of today. Many of our papers are just now getting online. Others are just now joining the social media craze. But how many of us have mobile versions of our web site?

Gladly, I can say that my college newspaper, The Ferris State Torch, does. This past year, after getting on the WordPress bandwagon, we have also pushed all of our content to a mobile friendly version of the site. It automatically detects what type of phone you’re browsing from, and even gives you the option to switch to the full version of the site. Commenting, search, categories, and even tags are all available and easy to use.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? Wrong. Thanks to WordPress having thousands of plugins available, we found one that is truly amazing for mobile publishing: WPtouch. After installing and activating the plugin, our site was ready for mobile viewers. The screenshot above shows a preview of our mobile edition.

What other benefits are there from adding a mobile version? Mobile doesn’t just mean phone anymore. With the recent rise of the iPod Touch (I see these all over my campus), there is a whole new market of college students to tend to. You want to be able to provide them with an easy, and fast, experience of your newspaper’s web site. The easier and faster it is for them, the longer they spend on your site and the more content they read.

However, setting up a mobile site isn’t enough. You have to promote it. Show an image on your regular web site, something along the lines of “be sure to visit our mobile site”. Heck, you could even put up an image of an iPhone, Pre, Blackberry, to help promote your newly found mobility. Run a house-ad in your print edition. Odds are, a lot of your readers aren’t sitting in front of a computer when they’re reading the paper, but I bet they have their cellphones on them.

With how quickly the web is changing, it’s not a bad idea to keep up with the trends. Who knows, maybe mobile will become the next big thing.

For more info on WPtouch, and how to integrate it with your WordPress-based online newspaper, visit the WPtouch web site.

Maurer, the publisher and editor of the St. Ignace News in St. Ignace, Mich. and the Mackinac Island Town Crier, represents an old school style of newspaper journalism that isn’t focused on tweets and web prowess, but more so the content that fills the space between the reader’s thumbs as they hold the paper in front of their face.

“If a reporter is using social media at work, I’d fire ‘em,” Maurer said during a panel on re-thinking the news at the Michigan Press Association’s conference in Grand Rapids, Mich. Jan. 29. “I’ve got a paper to put out.”

Maurer makes the point that some struggling newspapers seem to miss. The number of tweets, the quantity of facebook friends amassed and page impressions recorded are meaningless if the stories don’t mean something.

“It’s about honesty and competency,” Maurer said.

Clearly an applicable mantra to newspapers or any business, striving for excellence in your core production will garner the necessary success. Page views, re-tweets and the facebook friends are a byproduct of quality of one’s craft. College newspapers can and should focus on the same. Tweets are not how to tell the story. Tweets are how to get readers to the story.

Of course, web presence is necessary for collegiate newspapers. The students comprising the majority of the readership have grown accustomed to the web as a primary source. But, whether in print or digital, the quality of the content should be a first priority. The rest is just a delivery.