Sunday, December 12, 2004
UNLINKED
Newsweek writes about alpha bloggers in an article that features absolutely no links to the people they are writing about. |
NEW BUSINESSI wonder if the Greensboro News-Record realizes it may be reporting on its coming competition when it writes about a North Carolina man who has launched a blogging portal. According to the newspaper report:
Roch Smith Jr. doesn't write a Weblog blog, but he reads probably a dozen blogs a day. And in those by Greensboro writers, Smith noticed a recurring thread: people were clamoring for a single Web site where they could find out what local bloggers are talking and thinking about. Those comments spurred Smith, a Web site designer and former mayoral candidate, to action. The result is his new Web site, www.greensboro101.com/, whose aim is to aggregate the content of all local blogs. The site also includes discussion forums where visitors can weigh in on such issues as politics, entertainment and sports. Visitors to the Web site can read short snippets from local blogs. Those who want to read an entire commentary must click through to the blogger's Web site. "It's a dynamic table of contents for local Weblogs," said Ed Cone, one of the Triad's first bloggers. "Every hour, you can go to this site and (see) what's new." So, far 28 blogs are listed on Greensboro101.com, and Smith is adding two or three more every day. If I'm a newspaper publisher who looks at these blog thingies as something outside the mediascape, this is just a nice little local business story. If I'm a savvy newspaper publisher, I know that these are my readers and that they are taking the conversation outside my tent. As a reader/citizen in Greenboro, I now have a single source that not only gives me access to these local conversations, but a forum for discussion. As a citizen/journalist in Greenboro, I'm no longer working in isolation, but as part of a community. If I'm a really savvy newspaper publisher, I jump all over this idea. I combine the one-stop blog directory and related forums with what I'm already doing, not to put my "brand" on it (although that will happen) but to make my journalism stronger, more connected and more relevant.
SOURCE: J.D. LASICA AT NEW MEDIA MUSINGS |
Last update: 12/26/04; 7:03:52 AM .
