Recently I have been hearing about two recently launched websites designed to help folks find blogs by geographic location. PlaceBlogger is a fairly straight-forward directory that has some aggregated content on the main page. Outside.in is much more powerful — it aggregates blog posts and allows you to view all the posts for a given neighborhood or zip code and navigate the results by category or search. While the designs of both sites could be much more elegant, they complement the many already existing informal local blog directories that have popped up in most cities. (Such as DCBlogs) In addition, at the blogger summit held last night the Washington Post revealed a local blog directory they are in the early stages of developing for this region that looks promising. These intermediary tools are essential if blogs are to reach beyond a small self-selecting community of readers and function as journalism in a serious way.
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I wasn’t able to attend the “Blogger Summit,” but from what I’ve heard second-hand, I can’t say that I’m particularly impressed with what has come out of the first WaPo gathering. Is this anything other than just a directory/portal to local blogs?
it was nice to meet you at the blogger afterparty.
The program included a panel with various WaPo people including Marc Fisher answering questions about how they approach blogging, an attorney who spoke about libel law which although not thrilling was useful, and then they showed us their sponsored blogroll program where they are experimenting with an adsense-like ad network, and talked about the local blog directory. Although not earth shattering the people in attendance seemed genuinely interested in the audience feedback.
Another site to use for finding local blogs is http://www.grokodile.com/ – sparse currently but it has potential.