28.6.07

Aggragate

During the discussion at the last Madison Blogger Roundup, I had an idea. Madison (or just the UW) should have a central blogging hub. Now, I know, there are already several blog aggregators. But those aren't quite what I envision.

I would like to see a site set up where local bloggers could submit links to their own posts. Ideally, non-bloggers could write their own posts through the site and submit them. All readers could then leave comments and discuss the post.

What would make the site different than the other aggregators is that it would take the idea of ranking posts from sites like Digg, Reddit, and the like. Newly submitted posts would go to a page where readers would read them and add or deduct points. Anyone could submit posts, but the readers would decide which were good enough to make the front page.

It would be a great place to post breaking news. The various newspapers could post articles, breaking stories immediately and updating them as things developed. Sure it may hurt print sales, but it would increase online ad revenue. It would be a way for the two (and a half) campus papers to directly compete with each other (as Brad had suggested), and compete equally with the larger papers. Whoever got wrote the better article or posted it first would have a better chance of making the front page, and getting seen by more readers.

If developed properly, it could become a city- or campus-wide forum for discussion of local issues. It would be an easy place for the average person to voice their opinion and get it seen by those in power. And the point system would show how many others agree.

I would set something up right now if I had the website development skills to do so. Since I don't, I thought I'd just throw the idea out for consideration.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home