Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Shared Blog DNA Telegraph & Sprouts With News From The Community

It's a HOT one in Texas today. 87 right now at 3 in the afternoon. WeatherBug just went off with one of its annoying weather warnings.

I have WeatherBug set to only warn me if the weather warning is of the dire run for cover before you die type. But that setting function does not seem to work. So, I get warned about every little thing. Like right now the warning was because it will be a little windy for while. I can look outside and deduce that it's a little windy.

Today being Wednesday I made my usual journey north to Sprouts Farmers Market. I got a lot of good stuff. The Texas Red Ruby Grapefruit are being very good this year. Big and sweet.

Yesterday the Fort Worth Blog, West & Clear called it quits. That same day a blog called Fort Worth DNA, somewhat similar to West & Clear, sprung up, which mentioned the demise of West & Clear, saying...

"With the discontinuation of West and Clear, and the downfall of printed media, we wanted to create a local outlet. Anyone can post, and you can even share in any advertising revenue."

And another somewhat slightly curious thing about this new FW DNA Blog is their motto, or tag-line, or whatever it is you would call it...

"Written by the Community, for the Community."

Which reminds me of the motto, or tag-line, or whatever it is you would call it of another new Fort Worth Blog, one that that started up several weeks ago, that being the Star-Telegraph Blog which at the top says...

"Real Community News From The Community."

This must be one of those all great minds think alike type deals. Or not.

2 comments:

cpicht said...

With the elections over with, Westandclear might think there is nothing to jaw about. Not so. Suddenly our city council is back on track to ensconce themselves in the old post office building on Lancaster. The mayor's boy, Jungus Jordan, says it "screams city hall." And it can be done for only $4-6M/year. I love bargains. And indeed, Randle Harwood, the city's man in charge of frivolous spending, said that the cost could be defrayed by giving up some other leased properties around town. Councilman Espino asked, wha, wha, what about the bad roads? What about them, Sal?

Austin said...

I started the DNA blog. I am unsure what you meant about the "great minds think alike". I don't have anything to do with Star Telegraph and hadn't heard of them until this post.

I had an idea to crowdsource some time ago. Thought about doing it on a metroplex level on another platform, but backed down. W&C catalyzed movement.

Money isn't the objective for me, so if it spurs others to contribute they have an option of sharing in ad revenue also. Unfortunately none of the rev share plugins for wordpress are that well developed yet. So we're just working with what we have now.

People are responding well to the idea, traffic is relatively high, and registrations are steady... But, contributing writers isn't at any critical mass currently.

So I suppose it is a great minds, but you have to email to star-telegraph which is a barrier most won't overcome. Anyone can register at FWDNA, but of course our focus is more local. Also, I am sure there will be a great need to quality control FWDNA. But I am willing to bet that some great contributors pop up...