Blogging Tools

I learned that Dave Winer will be leading a discussion on blogging tools (from a user's perspective) at the Greensboro BloggerCon.

That's definitely a discussion I'm not going to miss; Dave was full of insight and added greatly to the conference in Chapel Hill last winter.

I noticed something in the comments to the post linked above; where is local search in blogging?

"Imagine that you're leaning on your neighbor's fence asking "what should I be reading?" Do you think that they would point you to blogs in other countries? Other states (if in the US)? . . .

I want my aggregator to be fed my zipcode and, in return, feed me with blogs and content from people in my area. I want content from people that pay the same price for bread in the store, shop for the same brands as me and understand why it's hard for me to drive in traffic like I do."

Thanks to Si Cantwell of The Wilmington Star Newspaper, we've got an aggregator in the local mainstream press. Last week Si asked local Wilmington readers to submit their blog URLs. Until we have the tools to automate this process, mainstream outlets can help aggregate voices and recommend them to the larger public. Newspapers have more flow than the average local blogger, yet in the "new media" age where newspapers are lamenting a loss of readers, recommendations like this seems a great way to build traffic, and credibility, from the blogosphere--everybody wins!