Finding Prominent Blogs
Yesterday I attended the Modern Media Strategies Workshop at The Heritage Foundation. There were many panels during the conference about how those in the political sphere can harness new and social media.
While blogging was one of many topics, many people from political organizations and congressional staffers asked the speakers about how one can find prominent blogs. Panelists suggested Google Blog Search and Technorati, among other blog search engines, as places to get a general idea about different blogs.
I would like to add two other resources: e-newsletters and blog aggregators.
Some newsletters track blogosphere chatter about a specific topic, and following this coverage is an excellent way to determine which blogs are influential. The Exoro Group's Utah Policy Daily is a great example from my old stomping grounds.
Blog aggregators cull posts from a set of blogs focused on the same topic. Thus, you can use these sites to easily track many blogs at once to determine which are the most prominent. Staying close to my previous example, UtahPolitics.org is an example of a site that captures political blog chatter in the state.
These are just two types of helpful resources. What do you use to find important sites?
CBSNews.com and Washingtonpost.com to Partner on Election Coverage
CBSNews.com and Washingtonpost.com are teaming up to share election-related content as a way of standing out in the increasingly crowded election news market. In a release about the partnership, CBS said:
The online relationship will join the rich tradition of both organizations, providing the combination of the most compelling video coverage from CBS News correspondents, producers and off-air reporters and the news, analysis and commentary from the Washington Post’s renowned political reporters.
The release also hints that CBS will be launching an ambitious Campaign 08 site in the coming months as part of this partnership. This come on the heals of the previously announced partnerships between the National Journal and NBC and USA Today and the Politico.
The media has always done some of its most innovative web work around elections. The election and election day sections of sites like CNN and Washington Post are some of the best things I’ve seen from the media in terms of technical execution.
I think we’re going to see some really fantastic online work in 2008 that will drive innovation for the entire media industry in the year following.
The $100 Laptop: Review, Comparison, and Competition
By now everyone on the planet has heard of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC), which aims to “provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves” by providing children in developing countries worldwide with a laptop. This ambitious venture has produced an inexpensive and extremely durable machine which will be sold to governments around the world and distributed to impoverished children. The laptop, called the XO, is currently in its final beta phase and is being prepped for mass production. What you may not know, however, is that the XO is not the only inexpensive computer being produced for this purpose. There is competition. Intel has been selling its version of the “cheap laptop” since March for $225. The company recently joined OLPC in an effort to maximize the benefits of this laptop development around the world. Vice President and director of corporate affairs at Intel Will Swope stated,
“Our role here is one of how do we have the biggest impact on education and on children around the world?” he said. The chipmaker has spent more than $1 billion in education initiatives since its founding, and over the last five to six years has been investing annually around $100 million on such projects. “How could we make that more impactful and reach more children?” Swope asked. The answer, he said, was to join OLPC.
Despite its collaboration with OLPC, Intel will continue producing and selling its Classmate PC to governments, leaving it up to countries to decide which laptop, the XO or the Classmate, will best suit its children. While the general concepts of the laptops overlap, variations in design, structure and applications make each laptop best suited for different environments.
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Taking a Look at My Times
The New York Times launched a Netvibes/My Yahoo style Ajax start page on their site called My Times a few days back. These start pages allow users to create a custom home page that features only the information they are interested in. In the case of My Times, users can select from a bevy of Times-related content and add RSS feeds from external blogs as well.
The reaction from the tech community has basically been a giant yawn. Dave Winer sees it as an opportunity missed. Techdirt reacts with derision. Everyone seems to be noticing that these kind of start pages have been around since the mid-90s. Nothing to see here. Move along.
They are right. My Times is inferior to start pages like Netvibes and Pageflakes that have tons of widgets and can be customized in pretty much limitless ways. But I’m pretty sure the folks behind My Times would answer by saying that they aren’t trying to compete with My Yahoo or Netvibes or whoever. I doubt the Times staff expect folks without an intense, pre-existing relationship with the Times website to sign up specifically to use their start page. My Times is intended as a value added feature for their loyal website readers – a way to get them to spend more time on the site. My Times accomplishes that goal very well I think.
The Best Newspaper Websites: Response Roundup
We received some fantastic feedback in regards to my post last week about our picks for the best US newspaper websites. I'd like to take a moment here and point out some other great websites that our readers brought to our attention.
A few readers questioned why our list only referred to US papers. Due to limited resources, our initial research only addressed the websites of publications here in the US. Last year, we conducted research on some international papers with help from our readers. In general, however, the Guardian and the International Herald Tribune are two examples of great newspaper websites. Their designs are superior with clean and uncluttered layouts. Both of these sites have successfully differentiated themselves from their print counterparts by combining aesthetic appeal with solid content and technological offerings. The Guardian tends to be known for offering high quality reporter blogs, which are expanded upon on the site Comment is Free, a blog- and comment- driven site tied to the Guardian's website.
Commenter Genevieve pretty much sums up the International Herald Tribune site in the comments from the original post:
I’m really surprised to not see the newly redesigned International Herald Tribune on this list: http://www.iht.com
It’s really clean and easy to read, the navigation “cloud” is interesting. I love how easy Search is to get to, and the video box on the right is cool. Plus, who doesn’t love big photos and big headlines on the article pages?
'Nuff said.
Some smaller US papers also received some positive reviews:
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