We are of the Office for New Media & Special Initiatives of the Pilot Media Group. We are part of the Catholic Media Secretariat of the Archdiocese of Boston. Other members of the Pilot Media Group include the Boston Pilot newspaper, the oldest Catholic newspaper in the country; the Pilot Catholic Directory, which publishes the annual official directory for the Archdiocese of Boston; Pilot Bulletins, the best four-color bulletin service for Catholic parishes; and Pilot Printing, which brings inexpensive, yet top-quality full-color printing to churches, ministries, and small business. Also part of the Catholic Media Secretariat is the CatholicTV Network, and I hope that someday we can add Catholic radio as well to cover all the various media.

So what do we do in the New Media Office? We manage all the various presences of the Church in new media: websites, smartphone apps, podcasting, videography, photography, and more. That means we create, maintain, and/or control websites such as BostonCatholic.org, the official archdiocesan website; Cardinal Seán’s Blog; The Light Is On For You, an archdiocesan-wide confession initiative; Pilot Parish Finder, a tool for finding Catholic parishes online and via smartphone apps; CareForSeniorPriests.org/BostonPriests.org; and more. We also maintain the social media presence of the Archdiocese: Facebook, Twitter (both the archdiocesan and Cardinal Seán’s pages), YouTube, Vimeo, and Ustream. On top of that, we also provide consulting and other services to parishes on the use of new media. Phew! I’m exhausted just typing it.

In addition, the “special initiatives” part of our name includes some special projects. One of the most exciting is World Youth Day Madrid 2011. In August 2011, members of our office will be traveling to Madrid, Spain, along with about 800 youth and young adults from the Boston area to take part in World Youth Day, a gathering of young Catholics from around the world with Pope Benedict XVI. About every other year or so, the Pope designates a place in the world that will be the location for World Youth Day and this year it will be Spain. We’ll be going to document the pilgrimage and to provide photos, video, and instantaneous text for friends, family, and interested parties back home to follow along on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media venues.

So who are the people in the office?

I’m Domenico Bettinelli, Creative Director for the office. My specialty is social media as well creating websites. My background is in journalism and blogging and I’ve been working in new media since 1996.

George Martell’s title is Producer. He is an expert in photography and videography. George has more than 25 years experience as a photojournalist, including long tenures at the Metrowest Daily News and the Boston Herald. He was also founding president of the Boston Press Photographers Association.

Anastacia Morabito is Web Coordinator. Her primary responsibility is with the vast content of BostonCatholic.org as well as working with various offices and ministries in the Pastoral Center, helping them with their new media needs.

We also have big plans for the future. You can tell by our name that the idea is for us to remain on the cutting edge of media and to use the best, new tools to spread the Gospel as we find them.

As for this site, we intend to use it as a place to experiment, to try out new things and learn some lessons about the tools that are available for new media. Thus, you can expect a rapid pace of change and even some time when bits and pieces are broken from time to time. Please bear with us on our learning curve. Maybe together we can both learn something new.

So, thanks for visiting and please stay tuned.