Getting the audience to interact

I am constantly looking for ways for my web crew to interact with our audience online. For the last week I've encouraged the KOMU-TV audience to submit photos that show how they are Mizzou fans. I've only gotten 10 or fewer pictures. But today was amazing. A terrible explosion happened in the state capital. A tanker full of explosive fuel blew up, killing the driver. The explosion damaged a bridge and knocked out a lot of the city's power. People who were nearby and far away started taking pictures. A viewer who was really close to the scene emailed us photos - Amazing photos of the devastation. Other people joined in and shared their perspective. It ended with this slideshow. We've had more than 870 views in the last four hours. For a small market, it's amazing.

As a side: I don't keep up with television schedules anymore thanks to TiVO. But here's a funny thing: My husband was watching PTI on ESPN this evening (on TiVO) when they mentioned Charlie Brown's Christmas special was on. So my husband hopped onto the TV schedule, hit record and now I have a cool show to watch with the kids sometime soon. I didn't know anything about the show until I saw someone's IM status mention the show. I said how disappointed I was that we missed recording the show and my husband smiled to show me he had already captured it. It's a changing world.

**Update - That slideshow ended up getting more than 2,000 views in one night. Pretty darn cool.**