Keeping busy

Blogging has been light here lately as I’ve been working on another project. I mentioned it here before, and it’s sort of taken off: http://www.thisisroanoke.com.

Originally my plan was to make a site for getting local news here in Roanoke quickly; who needs to read how three random people feel about the new parking rates when all you need to know is how much you’ll have to pay?

But then I discovered how easy it was to aggregate news feeds from all sorts of local news sources — mainstream ones and bloggers. Suddenly (i.e., in about three days) I had built a pretty decent news site.

Then those local bloggers noticed, and started telling other people. And then I found myself getting e-mail from people asking to be included, or simply saying, “Cool site.”

At this point the site is 98 percent self-sustaining, although I can’t help but tweak it a bit. If nothing else it’s an experiment in viral advertising. No local news source will mention it, of course, even though I’m sending them traffic. So the only way people are finding it is when other people tell them.

* * *

At the heart of it, I’m amazed at what kinds of free software is available. Want to pull in feeds from all over? No problem! Want to merge 10 feeds into one? Easy! Want to integrate Craigslist classifieds? Simple!

I can certainly understand why local media companies are worried. Many of them are stuck using software that isn’t easily integrated with Web technology. Others can can use the stuff but can’t spare the staff-hours to implement it. Others have such large (or stodgy) bureaucracies that they can’t take advantage of it. Others have old-fashioned ideas about what people want or what the “new media” can do.

And, of course, there’s the competition angle. An aggregation site is happy to pull in content from wherever, and link people to anyone. But if you’re a TV station or newspaper you probably won’t bring yourself to work with you competitors that way.

So I put in a few days’ work, developed the site, and now I’m gonna sit back and see what happens.