Comments on: Not why but how: reading Euroblogs

By: matt

matt — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:57:53 +0000

Count me in, too. I think you’ll see a lot of the ideas mentioned above appearing online this year, in one form or another.

The problem is to get a critical mass of content to play with. Unfortunately, that can mean everyone having to agree on how the content should be used … easier to herd cats.

But how about this: a group sets up a delicious account and tags everything they find interesting to create a pooled RSS feed. But then different members use the feed in different ways, just to see which technology/editorial approach/etc. works best. A combination of cooperation and competition, then.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:19:08 +0000

Interesting discussion. Lots of good ideas (also the code of conduct!). I also like the idea of a round-up and nosemonley did a great job last year, maybe we can organise a rotation. I think the eurovalley approach could be interesting as well but it really depends on how many people use it regularly…
Another idea is to create a “round-up website” that becomes sort of portal to the Euroblogosphere. I guess with a few volunteers it could work quite well. Let me know when you are planning to meet in Brussels, I would be interested in joining!

By: jen

jen — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:41:59 +0000

Nanne – thanks for your comment. The euractiv article about different blogs – or what I gleaned of it – was interesting, and the summary of blogs is exhaustive. However I didn’t think it was hugely different from the Loic le Meur wiki in content. I have already chosen blogs to look at from this site but I will mention blogactiv in methodology as well.
I find blogactiv interesting but at the same time it’s exclusive. If they had a way to feature or include blogs that don’t use the blogactiv domain that would be better – but it would possibly also defeat their intention, which seems to be to become a clearing house for eu/euro blogs.
I’d love to be able to make some contribution on how to find eu blogs or set up an aggregator but I always stumble upon blogs that I end up liking by accident, which isn’t very methodical…

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:07:48 +0000

Nanne / Ossi – there’s actually no contradiction here. There are some things you can do automatically with an aggregator, and others that require some editorial input. With a large enough group of volunteers the burden for the latter can be spread, and if the project starts to work well then any money raised can be ploughed into the editorial side… Anyway, that’s exactly what we’ll be discussing at the meeting.

By: Ossi

Ossi — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:02:35 +0000

Nanne,

I see your point, though I believe that at an automated or user-supported portal (e.g., the test Eurovalley site ) is preferable over for example linkblogs and the like. The Eurovalley platform allows summarising and commenting, which makes it perhaps more suitable for presenting analysis and debate.

To be honest, I am not optimistic that a completely manual system would work. People just can’t keep it going for very long.

By: nanne

nanne — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:21:54 +0000

Ossi,

I think these things are just depersonalised feed aggregators. They don’t add any new information, other than popularity ranking. I don’t think that’s a very useful way of presenting ‘excellent analysis and debate’ to an audience that doesn’t read blogs. You need to have a narrative, you need summarization, you need to repackage the information (all of which requires work, and time).

But perhaps it could be used to seed a weekly or biweekly roundup and e-mail newsletter. And maybe we could use a rotating curation model for that.

(Curating a round-up is so much better than having a carnival or circus visiting your blog)

By: Ossi

Ossi — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:53:18 +0000

Hi,

I did some research and found an interesting open source solution that might be of use, Pligg. You can give the beta of the Pligg-based Euroblog social bookmarking site here: http://www.eurovalley.net/cwe/. I encourage you to try it out and give comments. I think the platform has potential, but obviously requires critical mass before it becomes viable.

By: Ossi

Ossi — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:58:31 +0000

Nanne,

Why do you think an automated system would not work? What I had in mind was an automated feed based on blogs chosen by the editors. The idea would not be to be picky about which blogs to choose, but just to make sure they are not spammers. If the blogs are not interesting, the popularity algorithm would in the end make sure that their entries are not displayed that often.