"One big RSS reader."
That was my first impression of the new Miami Herald's South Florida blog aggregator. Not that that's a bad thing especially for people who have missed the boat on RSS readers. RSS readers are a great way to skim through a lot of blogs in a relatively short period of time and that, folks, is a very good thing.
But this is more than an RSS reader. I've spent a few days using the aggregator and I wanted to briefly share some of my thoughts.
* Don't like the look: While the three-column layout works okay, in my opinion, the design and the colors and the overall look is dated and worn out. Having said that, I fully understand that they are constrained to a certain degree by the Herald's master design. Not a big deal.
* The functionality is good. The Herald has collected an impressive number of SoFla blogs and made it easy for readers to follow all of them or just part of them. The categories that line the left sidebar are fair although I might quibble with a couple of the blogs placements [Law blogs under "Business" and "Politics?"]
* While I like the "Hot Comments" tab, the "Highest Rated" tab is next to useless. Posts will inevitably be artificially pushed to the top by the blog owners themselves and/or their friends.
* Each category has it's own RSS feed. Very cool.
* Search feature is effective and fast.
The Herald's blog aggregator is a very, very good thing for the online Herald and the South Florida blogosphere. It effectively intertwines the two and opens up the shadowy, back alley world of blog commentary to the general public. Online Herald readers get more news and opinion and bloggers get more traffic. It's a winner for both parties and I applaud the Herald for [finally] doing something like this. Come Monday, when the aggregator goes public, the Herald takes the lead in interacting with South Florida's bloggers and the Sun-Sentinel's efforts, while admirable and well-intentioned, look positively antiquated in comparison.
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11 comments:
I its nice to see this come to be, its unfortunate the Herald is stuck with that nasty look.
I am sorry, this is complete crap. We do not need some clueless old-world corporate conglomerate to meddle in our affairs. The local bloggers are doing their thing just fine, thank you. Herald is just mooching off of us to make themselves look less out of date. And to drive traffic to their site and boost their ad sales. If they want us to write for them, how about they pay us?
"We do not need some clueless old-world corporate conglomerate to meddle in our affairs"
That's what newspapers do. They meddle in other people's affairs. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to report the news.
And let's be realistic. Bloggers have been "mooching" off the newspapers for years.
Now it's gotten to the point where the newspapers realize that some bloggers have developed significant audiences.
It would be stupid to continue to ignore that.
And of course the Herald is trying to drive traffic to its site to generate ad revenue. What's wrong with that?
I use a lot of mainstream media stories to generate traffic to my site.
Hey Carlos, What's wrong with that? If they want to mooch off people to generate more ad revenue, they should PAY for it. We have decide that Soul Of Miami will not be participating. While we are proud to be re-presented by a quality site like South Florida Daily Blog, we have no interest in supporting the big corporations for free.
Also, great hanging with you last night.
James: While I recognize your principled stand and appreciate the recognition, I have to respectfully disagree.
I think it's high time that the Herald recognizes the blogger talent pool and integrates us into their daily coverage. I doubt that this aggregator is going to make or break the Herald but it's a great first step in incorporating "new media" into the old way of doing things. It's something that I, as a South Florida resident and a Herald reader, am happy to support.
Like it or not, the Herald is our newspaper and if it went away there would be a huge void. Personally, I can't exist solely on the tabloidism and muckraking of the New Times and the TV news leaves so much to be desired.
So, yeah, I'm happy to contribute to the aggregator and am really happy about the possible jump in readers it hopefully brings to SFDB.
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Hey James,
Yes, I had a blast last night. It was good hanging with you.
But don't you believe your blog would get more traffic if it was aggregated by the Herald?
And in turn, that would help generate ad revenue for you, if you had ads?
Also, I see that you are a Miami Examiner. From what I understand, the Examiner doesn't pay its writers. But they are definitely racking up the ad revenue through the articles written by its writers.
I think that is even more of an outrage.
Oh yeah, the Examiner pays. Not tons, but it's okay.
As far as the hits go, I understand the argument. I am not sure I buy it. My experience is that Google loves indie blogs, but does not love conglomerates. Try googling something I have listed on both Soul Of Miami and Examiner. In about 90% of the times I have done that, SoM comes up first.
But, yes, you may pick up a few more hits from Herald.com readers who happen to see your blog snippet on their website (all 12 of them). I dunno, I still don't think it is worth it. Actually, I think it may just canabalize hits we are already getting.
However, we can do an interesting comparison. You must track your hits and where they come from. See if your hit-counts go up any and see if that increase is coming from the Herald.
Or maybe it is just because I am ornery and do not like big corporations. I've always been an independant operator and I find it sad that people who are also like that are so happy the the corporation has thrown us a bone.
I'm as anti-corporate as you are, James.
And to be honest with you, I'm not giddy about the Herald's new aggregator because I think it will bring me more traffic.
I get a respectable amount of traffic as it is.
But as a journalist, I like what the Herald is doing because it shows that they are trying to keep up with the times.
Also, just because I'm not a big fan of the media conglomerates doesn't mean I don't respect the individual journalists at the Herald because I do.
I really don't think this new aggregator is going to bring them so much traffic that they are going to be laughing all the way to the bank.
And I doubt it will cause a huge percentage increase for my blog. But I will keep track and I will let you know.
I just see this as a step in the right direction for the sake of journalism.
Getting aggravated with the aggregator, talk to the gladigator.
Nice for the herald to do the modern anthropology archive, but honestly mostly duplicitous, clogging up the internet tubes.
Herald should meet Fark.
Hey, I can admit when I am wrong. Now, as usually, because I look before I leap. David, the nice editor at Blog Net News, contacted me directly and explained the whole situation to me. Of course, had I done any research, I would have known that this was not the Herald actually doing it, but that they had contracted an outside company, and that David and BNN was really trying to do something cool.
That David would take time out of his day to talk to me about my silly little blog shows what kind of a person he is. I asked him to convince me I was wrong, and he did so.
Short version: aggregate me!
What's that old saying from those Saturday morning cartoons?
If you can't beat them, might as well join them.
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