Blog Net News Shows How to Corral Top-End Politics Blogs
Important Details: How do publishers corral the best of amateur content and then offer it to readers? News publishers and others can look to a homegrown, hip-pocket creation of a daily news staffer for some guidance. Blog Net News is the work of Dave Mastio, who in his day job works as an editorial writer for the Norfolk-based Virginian Pilot.
Mastio, who has worked at USA Today and the Washington D.C. Examiner, thought that a selective group of public affairs blogs would be valuable. Starting with a Virginia politics blog (which is still the default home page, until a national page launches this summer), and now extending the idea to 25 states (with more in process), he’s hand-selected the best blogs and then scans and ranks them for his readers, using innovative ranking algorithms.
“If you want to read Virginia political blogs, for instance, there’s a huge investment of time — finding the best,” Mastio told Outsell. That’s what Mastio does, be selective, deciding which blogs to include, and which not to.
Blog Net News does more than present blogs; it tries to rank them in a journalistic way. Mastio has developed an “Influence Index.” It’s an algorithm mainly made up of the five measures, displayed individually on the right navigation of that page:
- Most commented-on blogs
- Most linked-to blogs
- Most clicked posts
- Most active (by number of posts) blogs
- Highest rated blogs (by Blog Net News registered users)
The Influence Index acts as an identifier most popular blogs. In addition, it’s a traffic driver, as bloggers vie for attention and check the rankings when they come out weekly.
Mastio has built his product on a budget of $25,000 and is now considering the addition of a first employee, as he looks to expansion and licensing opportunities.
Implications: Blog Net News shows how clear thinking and a small budget can build an impressive product. Newspapers are all about public affairs, and that public affairs sphere is now a shared one, traditional media and the blogosphere. The sooner the two learn to co-exist — and feed each other — the better for all concerned. Outsell believes the ideas behind Blog Net News are worth studying. They apply to the public affairs realm, but can also be applied, as Mastio is doing, to topical blogs in sports, business and lifestyle niches.