Australian Blogs Blog

I don’t have a personal blog so here’s my first rant.

As I go through my very comfortable life in a first world country, and I stress about:

• how long it takes me to commute from home to work (and back)
• how long the lines are at the checkouts
• how housing prices are nuts
• how some tosser in a 4WD cut me off
• how I can make that milestone and still make it to pick up my little boy before childcare closes

I just finished watching ‘Seoul Train‘ on SBS.

Enough said.

Blogs for positive change.

Highlight. Lobby. Change.

And while I’m at it, The Hope Orhanage. Get up.

What is News2.0 ?

News2.0 is an extension of www.AustralianBlogs.com.au – presenting the latest posts of the blogs submitted at AustralianBlogs.com.au. It aims to showcase (and ultimately drive sticky traffic to) locally-produced blogs.

How does it work?

• Australian blogger submits his/her blog at www.AustralianBlogs.com.au and tags it with the relevant keywords
• News2.0 picks up the new submission (usually after a few days) and searches the site for an RSS feed. If it detects a feed then News2.0 subscribes to that feed and displays the latest blog posts for public viewing
• News2.0 updates every 30 minutes (or so)
• The tag clouds read the blog posts on News2.0 and guesses the keywords associated with the blog post and aggregates them to show what the buzz is around the blogosphere. The tag clouds refresh every 24 hours.
• The search box is also another tool to locate blog posts of a particular keyword

I don’t want my feed to show on News2.0 – how do I get it removed?

• Option 1 – login to your blog control panel/admin area and switch off the RSS feeds from your site
• Option 2 – login to your blog control panel/admin area and select partial RSS feeds (this option would only show a limited amount of the blog post thus acting as a teaser)
• Option 3 – send me an email requesting removal (email AT australianblogs dotcom dot au)

My feed doesn’t show on News2.0

• Option 1 – go to www.AustralianBlogs.com.au and click on ‘Add Link’. Submit your blog and wait a few days for the feeds to be picked up
• Option 2 – If you’ve already submitted your blog and it still does not appear, check that your feed link is displayed on the blog and that it is enabled
• Option 3 – send me an email (email AT australianblogs dotcom dot au)

Who owns the content?

The blogger. We cache for performance but do not store content locally. Bloggers retain full IP/content control. We only display blogs submitted via www.AustralianBlogs.com.au and bloggers may opt-out at any time.

ADDENDUM

How are posts sorted? (or the timestamp on my blog posts are wrong!)

Blogs are sorted in reverse chronological order (ie. last in, first out). They are based on the server on which the blog is hosted. As the geography (and thus the local time) of such servers vary greatly, timestamps on blog posts will need to be taken with a grain of salt. They are only good for +-24 hours, however it’s the only way we have to sort posts.

Thanks for the write-up, James.

Good to see a few regional podcast directories getting a mention as well – African, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, UK, Portugese and Spanish.

With a smidge of embarrassment, I am somewhat proud to announce the launch of www.AustralianPodcasts.com.au – the sister site to www.AustralianBlogs.com.au and focusses on showcasing local podcasts (both audio as well as the emerging video podcasts).

Why embarrassed? Well, it’s a straight copy of the AustralianBlogs site. Talk about code re-use!

Steve Noble was kind enough to query the importance of differentiating between:

We both decided that links to any of the above would be acceptable given that, at the end of the day, the user would recognise the difference (and People Power would determine the most appropriate usage).

We also discussed the importance (and weaknesses) of tagging. Again, Steve has kind enough to point me to another local blogger, Donna Maurer’s post “When tagging doesn’t work – a comparison of two sites“. Fantastic post which crystallises some of our recent experience with tagging on AustralianBlogs.

A big thank you to Yaro, again for his support.

Richard Giles and Duncan Riley, both of whom listened courteously without bursting into laughter.

Also, thanks to Cameron Reilly for helping spread the word amongst the TPN team; and the Port80 guys (esp. Kay Smoljak) for being the best focus group ever + Mick Real for his help with the great link images.
Podcasting in Australia is more popular than I had expected. I spent an hour testing the site by submitting the ABC/Triple J podcasts myself but since the soft launch on Anzac Day, we have zipped along to over 70 listings.

I would encourage all our users to submit the bookmarks to their favourite local podcasts – you don’t necessarily have to be the podcaster to do so (though this would be fantastic) however I think it might be more beneficial to all if we got site traction quickly.

Local content for local audiences.

HELP AustralianPodcasts HERE

When I approached Yaro to be the patron of www.AustralianBlogs.com.au I had precious little idea as to what sort of response the website would get.

With some estimates of around 450,000 blogs out there in the domestic blogosphere, we always thought the challenge of aggregating them using good old fashioned ‘people power‘ would turn out to be exactly that – a challenge.

But with the pulling power of Yaro and friends (such as Darren Rowse at ProBlogger) we managed a better start than we could have possibly hoped for.

But ever since I read Chris Anderson’s manifesto ‘The Long Tail‘, I’ve always believed that the Aussie web was more than just ninemsn or yahoo7, and specifically the Australian blogging scene, was more than Entrepreneur’s Journey or ProBlogger (I mean that in the nicest way but I’m sure both Yaro and Darren would also agree).

What occurred in the ensuing weeks post-launch, also speaks volumes for the readership of Entrepreneur’s Journey and ProBlogger (and by implication, the Australian Blogging public):

- ‘business’ had 23 links

- ‘adsense’ had only 3 links

- ‘advertising’ 4 links

- ‘marketing’ 17 links

but,

- ‘art’ had 15 links

- ‘cooking’ had 15 links

- ‘design’ 25 links

- ‘family’ 12 links

- ‘food’ 16 links

- ‘media’ 23 links

- ‘politics’ a whopping 36 links!

- ‘travel’ 16 links (with Aussie expats from far-flung Bulgaria, Japan and Albuquerque to name but a few).

Much has been written about how blogging as a medium allows the individual an alternative pathway around the gatekeepers of traditional forms of media (eg. editors etc). Blogs shorten the ‘idea-to-published output’ cycle but also reduces the hoops one must jump though with the traditional means to get an idea or an opinion published.

If you couple this improved publishing probability with the potential spectrum of human endeavour and interests addressed by the ‘Long Tail’ then the humble blog becomes a tool of incredible flexibility and reach.

But wait, there’s more….!

Slap a layer of locality on it, in this case blogs of Australian-origin, and the cacophony of noisy blogs becomes a localised community. Related by blogrolls and communicating by comments and trackbacks.

Imagine that. Long but narrow. Wide but thin.

In closing, we’ve been careful not to play favourites and name blogs (unless it furthers the cause of raising the profile of Australian blogs) however I would like to draw your attention to The Hope Orphanage blog. This organisation runs an orphanage in Timor-Leste under some pretty horrific conditions and use this blog to document their work and attract potential benefactors. Do your own research. Make up your own mind, but I would like to commend the team for their resourcefulness and creativity.

This is the kind of grassroots social activism that makes me proud of the Australian blogosphere.

HELP AustralianBlogs HERE

We’ve had a real mixed bag (of tags) since launch. Everything from ‘+’ to commas to ALL UPPERCASE.

Some interesting discussions on this topic at:

- Genevieve’s ‘you cried for night‘

- Steve Noble’s ‘Life in Chippendale‘

The bottom line, of course, is that the user ultimately decides which tags to use (so long as it is in keeping with the anti-spam, non-adult content principles).

If you need some (non-judgmental) no-obligation guidance, just drop us a line:

email AT australianblogs.com.au

HELP AustralianBlogs HERE

I once had a friend that grouped and manually counted up all the multi-choice answers on his tests. He always allowed two or three minutes at the end of the session for this little indulgence.

Now, I’m no David Beckham but since the release of our link buttons, I’ve noticed a preference for the fractured cork with the wheelbarrow a close second.

Thanks to all that took the time to cut and paste. Every bit of sidebar real estate is precious and we appreciate your generosity.

HELP AustralianBlogs HERE

Wondering if your blogroll buddies have submitted their blogs?

Now you can use our new Rollyo search box….OR….if you prefer, browse blogs alphabetically. The last option is a little slow, but much more worthwhile.

HELP AustralianBlogs HERE

Community-driven websites are a great study in Malcolm Gladwell-esque social epidemics. On the one hand, the so called ‘wisdom of crowds’ acts as a sort of self-administered antibiotic – cleansing bugs and other nasties as they go. They bounce spam and gratuitous adult content etc. and they quickly let others know of the good stuff. We can see how del.icio.us, Digg and craigslist help quickly and effectively spread the word on a great site or blog (sometimes quicker than the search engines or traditional news portals can index or find them) whilst letting the community vote down or even help remove irrelevant content.

The flipside is the irrational exuberance inherent in such popularity contests. People join community websites for many reasons. They question, respond and interact for many reasons. Some have purely altruistic drivers, whereas some are just PageRank mercenaries (not that it’s a bad thing). My point is simply that these ‘Top xxx’ or ‘Popular’ lists should be interpreted with that in mind. Like that tosser that listed his Australian blog last week and used ALL UPPERCASE TAGS…

(In all fairness, we didn’t have the validation rules that we should have…until now.)

‘What’s Popular’ lists and SEP etc take on a mainstream, utilitarian approach to information. They ‘pool’ attention and generate hype and buzz which is very useful for disseminating info to a large group of interested parties. But a ‘cost/benefit’ approach doesn’t always work. There is such a thing as the ‘Long Tail’…

AustralianBlogs.com.au is, and will always be, a community-driven site.

We believe and rely wholly on the goodwill of the community that submits bookmarks of Australian blogs, as well as that of the blog readership. We value transparency and believe in the sovereignty of choice.

YOU decide:

• which blogs interest you
• what’s popular
• which feeds to subscribe to
• which applications to use in reading, writing or using blogs
• what tags to use to describe your blog

AustralianBlogs.com.au will have imperfections. The blogs submitted might not use the relevant tags or may contain typos. These imperfections will be minimised using technical means however such imperfections are part of the double-edged sword that is the community-driven website.

In short, we believe that people power (warts and all) provides that best combination of hype + long tail OR mainstream vs niche.

We’re not your WHEREIS street directory. All we can give you are fuzzy directions.

(In compiling this post, I referenced Delicate Genius Blog “Popularity does not equate to relevance”)

HELP AustralianBlogs HERE

When you’re a new website, every link is gold. But when you are a volunteer-outfit, every recommendation is like receiving an organ donation.

Thank you to Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse, Duncan Riley, David Wallace, Trevor Cook, Olaf, Donna Hamer, David M, Shane Williamson and Dion (+ Kay Smoljak, Malcolm Lambe, David Jacobson, Daryl Cook, Tony Goodson and Jozef Imrich).

Thanks also to all who dropped me an email during the week. I have re-read many of these emails (it’s much easier than visualising in front of the vanity). Your kind words give us strength.

Thanks to Genevieve Tucker who helped knock up the HELP page (even though she had to re-post her blogs twice…and still got it wrong…….your secret’s safe here heheh)

AustralianBlogs.com.au is launched on Monday, March 20th 2006 with an email from Yaro Starak (our patron) informing me that he has posted this entry on his blog.

It’s white-knuckled stuff as the Refresh button gets more attention than an aussie travel ad in the mother country. With 30 or so blogs listed in the testing before launch, Michael Kordahi comes to the rescue with the first real Live (autonomous) blog listing.

I perk up in my chair. Heave a sigh of relief before heading back to the comfort of the Refresh button.

This scene is repeated over the course of the next six days. Addicted to the web stats and scouring the web for signs of how disastrously we have done. What do people think of it? Will they submit their blogs? Will they come back and browse?

Dare I even hope that they might even mention it in passing to a friend?

But somehow, the blog submissions stagger in. I am in no doubt, it is because of Yaro’s pulling power.

He emails me to tell me it is on ProBlogger.

ProBlogger!?!?! Are you serious?!?!?!? Darren Rowse?

Six days on, the count is at 208. I have lost countless hours reading blogs submitted during the week.

I write back to Yaro.

Mate.

The itch has been scratched. I can die a happy man.