Time for the Blog Portal?
If you’re a fan of any of the major high-tech blogs such as TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm and Mashable, you may be finding them increasingly difficult to read these days.
It’s not because the content isn’t interesting or high quality. The problem is there’s just too much of it.
With multiple writers pumping out lengthy posts throughout the day, it’s becoming an editorial tsunami. As a result, TechCrunch et al have arguably become less user-friendly because there’s just so much stuff to wade through.
Part of the problem may be the traditional blog format they’re using in which posts appear one on top of the other. It means that finding a particular post that caught your eye earlier in the day can be difficult to find again if it’s five or six screens down the road.
So, what’s the solution? One tactic may be the creation of spin-offs such as GigaOm’s NewTeeVee, WebWorkerDaily and Earth2Tech.
But there’s another approach. As much as anyone doesn’t like using the “P” word these days, it could be time for the emergence of the blog portal.
TechCrunch, for example, would be reborn with a three or four column design that featured five to eight stories on the front page with the biggest/best stories getting the most real estate. For readers, this would make it easier to look at a wide variety of content before diving into the blog posts that were the most interesting.
It is difficult to envision any drawbacks with the concept of a blog portal compared with the current linear format. A TechCrunch portal would have as much, if not more, real estate for advertising, although some widgets such as Swicki and MyBlogLog may have to be sacrificed. And if Mike Arrington wants any advice, he could always ask Arianna Huffington, who has made The Huffington Post a red-hot online content property.
So, what do you think? Is it time for the arrival of the blog portal.
Update: Fortune has a profile on Arrington that describes him as the ‘Wizard of the Web 2.0″.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch
March 25th, 2008 at 8:39 am
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.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:52 am
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…
March 25th, 2008 at 8:57 am
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.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:49 am
You’re not really talking about a portal here, Mark, you’re talking about a dedicated front page with cover stories.
And yes, absolutely.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
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)
March 25th, 2008 at 10:12 am
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
March 25th, 2008 at 11:54 am
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.