Exciting things are happening in the realm of making it easy to discover new media in Edmonton. So exciting that I feel compelled to blow the dust off my blog and see what I can do to bring these efforts to your attention.
ShareEdmonton blogs
Mack Male has made a number of improvements to his important ShareEdmonton site, but the thing I am most excited about is the index of Edmonton blogs. I know Mack has been working on this for a long time, as I had the pleasure of seeing some early versions. What he launched this week surpasses my high expectations.
I have long wanted a place to go to see at a glance what was going on in Edmonton’s blogosphere. When I was the editor of edmontonjournal.com, we made a stab at a page like that, which has since been greatly improved — kudos to Barb Wilkinson and Kerry Powell for making that happen. But it’s still pretty deep in the site (though you can find it under the Opinion nav under “Community Blogs”), and it’s not easy to look at on my phone, which is where I do most of my reading.
ShareEdmonton has a responsive design, so it’s just as easy to read on a mobile device as on a desktop. It’s organized so that the most recently updated blogs are at the top, and if you’re only interested in a certain category, like politics or fashion, you can just pull those up. I’ve bookmarked ShareEdmonton’s blog page on my phone, and I expect to return to it daily.
If you have an Edmonton blog that is updated regularly and you’d like to bring to the attention of more people, I encourage you to submit it to both ShareEdmonton and the Journal. The more ways we have to discover each other, the better.
Made In Edmonton
There must be something in the air, because here’s another aggregator of Edmonton blogs that launched this week. Made In Edmonton focuses on startups. As creator Jas Panesar describes it, it “aims to be a complete list of startups from Edmonton that exist in and out of the limelight, complete with a centralized city-wide blog feed of Edmonton’s Startup Blogs and Twitter feeds in one place.”
This grew out of discussions at the Edmonton Lean Startup Circle, which meets every Friday afternoon. I’ve attended a couple of times, and have been impressed with the intelligence and problem-solving power in the room. Bravo to Jas for cultivating such an atmosphere, and for building this site to spread the word.
As someone who is very interested in Edmonton’s startup scene, I’m grateful to have one place I can go to find out what’s going on. Its robustness will depend in part on how often and how well local startups update their blogs and/or Twitter feeds, but I think this has great potential to shine a light on some pretty interesting stories. If you have an Edmonton startup, submit it to Made in Edmonton, and visit often to keep up on what your peers are doing.
The Unknown Studio
The Unknown Studio, whose podcast has introduced me to so many interesting Edmonton people, now has a weekly Edmonton Blog Watch. In it, Adam Rozenhart does what I had been trying to do with the new media roundup, except more succinctly and regularly (and therefore better).
Adam has a good eye for what’s worth reading, and gives you enough information to decide for yourself whether you want to click. It’s a much more curated experience than the blog feeds on ShareEdmonton or Made in Edmonton, but sometimes that’s what you want. If you want to bring a blog to the attention of the Unknown Studio, submit it.
I haven’t updated my own blog in too long, as I’ve been busy with this and that. I think I’m going to pivot a little here. When I notice a pattern worth commenting on, I’ll fire up the new media roundup again. In the meantime, I’m going to use this blog for some other experiments in creative expression.
As always, I’d love to hear what you think about any of this. You can comment, or find me on Twitter or Google+.
(Edmonton aerial courtesy of jasonwoodhead23’s Flickr stream, licensed under Creative Commons.)
Seen and Heard in Edmonton 