(Or it would be “liveblogging” if we had actually been provided with a wireless connection. Here’s the final third of the summit, which is when I opened my computer. I was there for the whole panel thing, but I walked around a bit before finding an empty chair, and it turned out to be Mike Panetta’s. Sorry, Mike. Anyway, Wayan gets first dibs on actually posting from the event. More after the jump.)
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I type this from the Washington Post Blogger Summit, seated at the Metblogs table. Right now Jonathan Krim is demoing to us their new upcoming Local Blog Log section, a planned directory of DC weblogs, listed by location, topic, and a few other content-based criteria. As near as I can tell, it’s able to do something called “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.”
Aw, he won’t show us the directory inside mockups since he doesn’t want us to see him typing his username and password.
Under the “What We’re Seeing” header, I see a small Flickr feed and an invitation to “Share your local photos” by tagging them “wpblog.” Now that’s asking for all kinds of fun awesomeness, by which I mean overeager Flickr users who might not even be in DC tag-spamming “wpblog” with various forms of unwholesome.
Some of these people sure seem eager to get stalked: “Let us geocode our blogs on your service!” Response: Bloggers are targets. Washington Post are targets. Let’s be targets together! Local Blog Log cares about your privacy, despite your eagerness to give the world your precise latitude and longitude. Gives new meaning to the idea of them wanting to give their readers the opportunity to find you.
“Sponsored Blogroll.” I remember getting an email about that. I’m kind of wishing now I’d answered it. The logo uses the name “wpniBlogroll,” WPNI being the Post’s “official” Arlington-based company, apparently so certain pundits don’t have to deal with the Washington Post name in their sidebars?
An easier URL! Yes, the less “wp-adv” I have to type, the more at peace I shall be. But Jonathan’s answer is that they do their SEO such that people arrive at Local Blog Log by search engines, and they’re optimized enough to compensate for the URL badness.
I think I’m going to raise my hand!
Yes! I got to use “fun awesomeness!”
Question about revenue. “We’re not doing this to make money.” Big ING Direct banner there. Dude.
More: the idea being that the real point of this is exposure for DC bloggers, Post revenue is secondary. A very 2.0 outlook! Then he just said something about advertisers and aggregation which flew over my head, but it sounds like Washington Post is giving me free money. I think that’s good. That’s good, right?
MyWashingtonPost.com is apparently a terrible horrible failure that needs to be put down like a horse with four broken legs.
Don is suggesting that the updated highlight content be more prominent. We are all nodding our heads. More individual entries, less focus on the directory?
DC Metblogs is totally ruling the discussion. We should get a trophy. Go us. Whoo.
Wayan wants Digg-esque. Somewhere, some Post coder hates him now.
Widgets! Jonathan said widgets!
Sorting! Someone asked about sorting, and whether we should all rename our blogs starting with letter “A.” I prefer random sorting.
It’s over! After Party!
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
