Is It Time for a Major Directory of Local Blogs?
by Matt on Jan 29, 2010 in Industry
On the Knight Digital Media Center’s “News Leadership 3.0″ blog (that’s a mouthful), Michele McLellan has started creating a list of online news organizations — a list that includes, of course, several hyperlocal news blogs.
Michele already has quite a list in place, and she’s divided it into several categories. And even more readers are leaving the names/links of their blogs/sites in the comments of that post. (If you run an online news blog/site, maybe think about joining that discussion.) All of this is only cementing an idea that’s been in my mind for some time now, and an idea that I shared in the comments of that KDMC post:
We need a high-quality directory of great hyperlocal blogs and web sites.
I’m not necessarily volunteering to do it, mind you; my time is extremely limited these days with clients, work, and a fair amount of travel coming up. But someone should do it. Maybe if no one does, I’ll pick up the torch at a later date.
It would have to be done right; there are all kinds of issues included in that, like whether or not to charge for submissions, how to define a local/hyperlocal blog or web site, and so forth. But I really believe there’s a need for this.
Do you agree? Disagree?
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6 Responses to “Is It Time for a Major Directory of Local Blogs?”
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What about Placeblogger? It actually got its start with a Knight Foundation grant.
http://www.placeblogger.com/
In theory it would be nice, but actually doing it, if you were really going to do it right, would be a nightmare and a time-suck, plus it would require a ton of promotional efforts to even begin to see enough traffic to the directory at a level where you could justify charging for listings. Without traffic hitting the directory, it’s really just a link dump.
Still, it would be nice if someone had the time and resources to put into such a project to make it worth while, I just wouldn’t want to try and be that person.
On a side note, something that might make for a good future posting for you (and an idea for the inspired) would be hyper-local blog owners polling together into networks, small or even large.
A lot of what’s “good material” for the HL blogger in Philadelphia is also good material for HL bloggers in Jersey City, Atlantic City and even New York, and while bloggers in each area can do fine on their own, imagine the possibilities of polling their resources on occasion. Not all the time, but on events or stories that would have cross-over interest there could be arrangements to share basic details and even media files with one another.
Maybe this week the Philly blogger covers a big event and shares details and pics with the others, then next week the New York and Atlantic City bloggers each cover events that they’re willing to share from. I’m not talking about guest posting on the events, but rather sharing the “who what where when and why’s” along with some media if available so that each blogger could then write their own pieces from that. It’s easy content, expanded coverage range, and still unique for all in the end.
And you don’t have to be from major cities to make that work. I’m in Pittsburgh, where there’s cross-over interest and opportunities with bloggers from Steubenville OH, Weirton WV and tons of smaller towns in-between.
Wherever you are there’s opportunity to connect and network with neighboring bloggers, but unless you think about that and contact them individually it’s a lost opportunity. That’s where I think a hub membership site or forum devoted to HL bloggers could come in handy as a way to encourage such relationships.
Papers have been doing that very thing for years, sharing everything from graphics and artwork, printing presses and even newsroom space at times–and from an online perspective it capitalizes on the greatest tactic that adult ent. sites have been exploiting forever to increase their traffic and revenues, exposing their visitors to each other’s sites because they know fans won’t leave you for another site, they’ll just add that new site into their list of places/blogs to follow.
Sorry my comments went on and on, it’s just something I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while and popped right up as an alternative idea when I read your directory posting.
It’s not a major directory just yet, but here’s new a gallery dedicated to hyperlocal news sites.
http://www.gohyperlocal.com
If we can get publishers submitting their sites, it should be possible to grow it into a nice resource.
6 months ago I picked up hyperlocalblogdirectory.com and hyperlocaldirectory.org to create a this exact directory. I have a few people here with me and will volunteer them to help build the site.
For one person it would be a nightmare time suck and so there would have to be regional moderators once it gets going or self policed like Craigslist.
Once I have set parameters I’m off and running but we’ll need some direction from the group regarding the organization and directory structure.
Any thoughts?
Is the point of the directory to help hyperlocal bloggers get in touch with each other? That seems like a worthy goal, if we’re talking about information sharing.
On the other hand, I’ve never really understood the reasoning behind ad networks for hyperlocal sites. It seems like the big benefit of being hyperlocal is that we can connect local businesses with local customers. A network, by its nature, doesn’t really offer that.
The point, selfishly speaking, was mostly for me to find a way to keep track of all the new hyperlocal blogs and, even more, all the sites – services – tools out there that serve the hyperlocal market.