And I started blogging way before Buffalo Rising…etc…as well and wanted to be able to continue doing the thing I love to do without bumps along the way (selfish, maybe? But I’m not a fizzler!!!) Most of my readers came from before I started the gig over at wnymedia and most of them did not like that they couldn’t just go to my personal blog and read the content without having to click links. And since I agree and want those 300ish people a day to keep reading, I switched over to allthingsjennifer.com until figuring out how to incorporate any of my posts into your main feed. If there still is a way to *borrow* repost? the content I am putting up into the main feed, I am more than happy to be a part of the team, I just know that when I started doing this, I did it for me…and I needed to stay true to what I needed.

With the exception of a few (Punaro, Kelly, Erin) most writers hopped onboard with the concept. Over time, many of those blogs fizzled out (as most blogs do) and there was an explosion in the local blog scene. The value proposition of a local “independent blog hub” lost some of its luster and we didn’t spend enough time tending our own garden to recruit and develop new writers. We value independence of thought and wanted to avoid the stilted groupthink that inevitably develops on editorially centralized sites like BlogTO and BRO.

We thought we had a model that worked for us and it still does, we’re just making an adjustment to it. Each writer will still have their own page, but publication of articles to the frontpage of the portal will be simplified and we’ll be better able to drive a unified portal on which readers can discover new content. We’ll also be more agile when it comes to adding writers who don’t care about a personal blog page and simply wish to contribute articles on issues in which they hold some sort of expertise. I think what we’re trying to do here is similar to “group placeblogs” but with a small twist.

As to giving a blog page to “anyone who wants one”, well, every blog has an audience. No matter how vapid or amateurish you may find some of our current and past bloggers, they all find their own audience. You might not like the way they write or what they have to say, but the site looks like Buffalo. Suburbanites, urbanites, businespeople, blue collar workers, politicians, government employees, students, sports fans, attorneys, and every walk of life has been or is currently represented here. Maybe we’re wrong for not trying to appeal to a specific demographic, but we don’t care. This isn’t a million dollar operation, it’s a site where people hang out and chat.

That said, I’m not sure I’d use this ‘idea’ as a way of validating anybody’s insight since it’s 99% of other blog sites work including those in your space – Buffalorising.com in particular.

For the surfers, they’ll feel like they’re losing the individual voices, which may be similar to what it was like when WNYM went single theme. I could see some backlash against that. Most of the time I don’t see/care who wrote an article on BRO, I treat it as a single voice.