Blogs

Dave Cohn, of Spot.us, posted a reaction to Huffington Post's experiment in localized versions of its site. Let's start with there:

Should citizen journalism organizations in Chicago (WindyCitizen.com or Chi Town Daily) be afraid. Hell yea.

I don't really want to defend the larger newspapers - but I do think that if this experiment works and moves to other cities - we might start seeing a reverse of citizen journalism: From small independent organizations to... Open Salons (open.salon.com), HuffingtonPosts and I'm sure Slate will follow. That doesn't solve the old media problem - it might just bring it to a new platform.

Scott Rosenberg, a former editor at Salon Magazine who's writing a book on blogging, takes aim at a fact of life for people creating new media online: They have to find ways to be noticed:

This is the way the Web works. If this (or any) blog were my primary focus, I’d be out there rustling up readers for it, because that’s what you have to do. I think a lot of journalists still see this as a grubby, low, self-promoting activity that is beneath them. Of course, it can be done in a grubby way (and often is) — but that’s true of everything. Writing headlines is, after all, another form of the art of rustling up readers. It can be done with style and flair; it can be done crudely and effectively; it can be done clumsily and stupidly. But it must be done. There is no alternative.

Ex Cisco wonderboy turned video startup CEO, Mike Volpi, posted to the Joost company blog a couple days ago discussing how Adam Smith versus Vint Cerf would right that pesky Net Neutrality debacle. He starts with a quote from Wealth of Nations on "consumption as the sole and end purpose to production" and goes on to echo the anthem of most digital libertarians.

The challenge with creating competition in the broadband market is that building a national network (with any technology – wired or wireless) requires a lot of capital – capital that is not so available in these economically challenged times. The two existing broadband networks – built with telephone wires or coaxial cables – both received governmental help in their creation – one through taxpayer dollars (Ma Bell) and the other through franchise rights that were granted to cable operators.

Yesterday on MediaShift, Mark Glaser posted a great interview with Karyn Lu and Lila King who just won $10,000 in seed money from the New Media Women Entrepreneurs Competition. Lu and King, both working for CNN in Atlanta, pitched a project called Echo that will collect stories from citizens of Atlanta through physical hot spots in the city.

The plan is to post signs with phone numbers and location IDs for that geographical location. They are starting hyper-local by gathering interviews from  a single neighborhood in Atlanta called Lake Claire. In those interviews, they are asking locals about spots important to them. On their project page, they say these will be part of their proof of concept.

I just saw this. Google has added an option for walking directions to Google Maps. After you search for directions, you'll see the "walking" link at the top left.

Pedestrian routes could make for some interesting mashups on community blogs. I thought that Everyblock had a feature to look at crime by route, but I'm not finding it at the moment (comment if you find it). Beyond crime, there should be a lot of stories that matter to pedestrians differently than those in their vehicle. News on routes where kids walk to school, construction affecting sidewalks, even flooded routes (for minute-to-minute blogs) could make for useful mashups.