Two Republican blog aggregators.

Posted byWaldo Jaquith 12 Comments on Two Republican blog aggregators.

Unintentionally emblematic of the state of the Republican Party in Virginia, a pair of competing conservative Virginia political blog aggregators have appeared: Conservativa and Old Dominion Blog Alliance. The former complains front and center that my aggregator has more Democratic blogs than Republicans, its creator apparently unaware that there are simply far more Democratic blogs than Republican blogs in Virginia. Maybe somebody can create one more liberal blog aggregator and then I can get out of the business entirely?

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

12 replies on “Two Republican blog aggregators.”

  1. Hi Waldo, thanks for the mention. I am indeed aware that there are more Democratic blogs. That’s why I created my aggregator – to make the Rep. blog entries more convenient reading. As for Jason’s aggregator, I like it a lot and link to it, right by the link I have to your site (which has been on my site since day one. Um, don’t see a link on your site to mine?) Perhaps two Rep. aggregators is not a sign of a fractured party. Maybe it’s the opposite – a sign of a new period of those of us who are blog-aware now wishing to get much more involved and active, working with each other, complementing each other’s efforts. Maybe it’s the beginning of a small Virginia Republican blog renaissance! And please don’t go out of the business, Waldo, you are an inspiration to us, seriously. You have been leading and setting the tone, encouraging blogging in general and trying to foster a sense of community among bloggers. This is a good thing.

  3. Waldo, the creation of these aggregators isn’t a challenge to VPB or BNN or even each other. Each one caters to a different crowd. Conservativa is Jane’s list of conservative blogs and seems to be limited to the more Right think-tanks among Virginia Conservative blogs while the ODBA list (which I established) is merely an aggregator for the ODBA blogroll and more of a service to the ODBA members than anyone else. Like Jane said, these things are inspired by your work and your efforts to create community among Virginia bloggers. Sure it’s a bit more targeted, but these are nothing more than community building tools. Personally, I still use VPB for overall Virginia political browsing and for a healthy dose of political thought from all sides (and, quite frankly, your layout is much more user friendly than BNN).

  4. This whole business of conservative versus liberal blog aggregators isn’t a good thing. It will eventually lead to each group going off into it’s own corner with it’s own kind and never seeing what the other side has to say. We are all better off being confronted with opposing opinions every day. It keeps us all sharp and agile.

  6. Just to be clear, I don’t care if there are 100 blog aggregators. It’s all the same to me. Though I agree with Jack w/r/t being exposed to opposing opinions, I’m starting to suspect that it’s simply too late for the Virginia political blogosphere.

  7. I’m not a big fan of the cutting off either, comes back to that whole “daily me” thing Cass Sustein covered in Republic.com (which I have extra copies of if anyone wants one, contact me). But I think there’s also a demand for these things, if not from the members than from potential readers. Leftyblogs has existed for a while to fill that need for bloggers on the left, if is only now that those on the right are starting to catch up and respond in kind. Thankfully there are aggregators in the middle like VPB and BNN to show both sides, but creating tailor lists to either end of the spectrum is a natural occurance.

  8. For the record, before there was conservawatsia and the ODBA aggregator there was:

    A conservative-only BNN page (launched in August 06 with a liberal-only page):
    http://www.blognetnews.com/virginia/feed.php?vfolder=2

    A Castle bloggers-only page (launched in Jan 07):
    http://www.blognetnews.com/virginia/feed.php?vfolder=13

    An ODBA-only page (launched just after the Castle feed):
    http://www.blognetnews.com/virginia/feed.php?vfolder=14

    Jason is right: “Creating tailor lists to either end of the spectrum is a natural occurance …” But what these two new aggregators are is a REcurrence.

    By the way, for those who want to cut out the middle-man, the BNN Bulletin can be cutomized to create a feed of conservative, ODBA or Castle (or liberal) blogs for those who want a simple one-flavor feed of direct headline links on their own site. That is available here: http://www.blognetnews.com/virginia/add-bnn.php .

  10. REcurrence or simply a way to cut through the fat and present info in a different means? Conservativa is limited not just to conservative blogs but conservative blogs of Jane’s choosing (it seems) so it’s a bit more selective than the BNN Conservative feed. And the ODBA one might parrot the BNN ODBA listing, but with it being run by ODBA folks it can add new members quicker and also provides a straight shot of the information for anyone willing to see. Not really trying to steal any thunder here, just trying to provide a service to VA Bloggers.

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