Sunday, June 14, 2009

South Florida Blogging

This past Monday I had the opportunity to sit down with some of Miami's local bloggers to catch an early bird of Miami Herald's new section that showcases bloggers in South Florida.
The site, an aggregator, features more than 200 blogs across South Florida, to include blogs from the New Times, Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel along with local bloggers like yours truly.

You may be thinking, "yeah, well, so what?" Yes the Sun-Sentinel already has something similar, but this is far more interactive than a list that is lost on a website. Each blog is in a category (or two) and if you are interested in a certain blog, like parenting, you can click on that section and it will bring up all the blog posts that have recently been updated. You can rate the entry, see the ones with the most comments, etc. And if you click on the "read more" section, it takes you too the blog. So those of you fellow bloggers don't have to worry about your traffic going down.

"How do I know the Herald isn't publishing blogs it approves of?" The system is automated to pull from rss feeds. And if the Herald is willing to post blogs that are critical of it, like Herald Watch then you can be rest assured that you will be included as well. As long as your blog isn't focused on selling things/advertising things.

It's really cool to see that the mainstream media are becoming more accepting of social media now. Don't get me wrong, nothing can replace tried-and-true successful journalism, but that industry is not just tied to paper and ink anymore. Plus it was nice to sit down with Vice Queen Maria, Carlos Miller, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Mango and Lime, Brickell Life, and Dayngrous Discourse and hear everyone's idea.

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