Comments on: Time for the Blog Portal?

By: Daniel Gibbons

Daniel Gibbons — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:54:26 +0000

I agree, this could be a great way to sort through the clutter. However the GigaOm example is an interesting one. I find that the fragmentation of the site into all the sub-sites has gone hand in hand with a sharp decline in the quality of the content. The result? I never read anything from that entire group of sites, meaning I miss out on Om’s insight and analysis. Sometimes the issue is that there is just too much low value content chasing after pageviews.

By: Mark Evans

Mark Evans — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:12:09 +0000

Steve: You’re right, using Netvibes et al is one way of creating a customized “blog portal”. I’m just suggesting that the big blog networks might make themselves more user-friendly by embracing another format to distribute content.

Mark

By: steveh

steveh — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:47 +0000

I’m confused…how is this ‘blog portal’ any different than setting up a Netvibes (or Pageflakes, etc.) layout using only your most pertinent blog RSS feeds? Or better, with ‘sub-feeds’ from different topics from each blog. (assuming each blog actually breaks down their content into more granular feeds)

Bonus: if the RSS feeds are constructed and populated well, you never have to actually go to the blog with the poor ‘one post below the other’ layout. (ads are still included in RSS feeds, so the blog won’t necessarily lose much in that area either)

By: tdhedengren

tdhedengren — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:49:17 +0000

You’re not really talking about a portal here, Mark, you’re talking about a dedicated front page with cover stories.

And yes, absolutely.

By: felix

felix — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:57:10 +0000

A new layout might work, but with more content on the homepage, I fear that it might also require more clicking since they probably would just show summaries instead of full posts? My own solution to the problem is Google Reader – let’s me easily find older stuff that I’m looking for either starred or with the search.

By: Wayne Smallman

Wayne Smallman — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:52:40 +0000

Agreed.

It’s bad enough suffering from Social Network Fatigue without being stricken with Information Diarrhea, too.

A portal makes a lot of sense, so long as we can add tags to sort the content we’re most interested in…

By: Devin Anderson

Devin Anderson — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:39:55 +0000

I think that’s a great idea. I hate having to scroll down to find some story I’m looking for. I would rather be able to see a lot at once with a short description next to the title.