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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Metroblogging to trump city sites?

Citysearch is one of a gaggle of Web sites designed to tell you what you need to know about a city—restaurants, entertainment, recreation, services, and the like. Advertising-supported, these sites offer reviews, maps, weather, and a host of other resources. They may be going the way of the dinosaur.

A new breed of blog is emerging called a metroblog. As Metroblogging puts it, “Event listings to general rants, photos to reviews - metblogs are a hyper-local look at what’s going on in the city. A group of regional bloggers give each site a new perspective on daily life. Less calendar listing, more friendly advice.”

A variety of bloggers contribute to each site. I checked out SF.MetBlogs.com (since that’s where I live), and found (in addition to recent postings), a list of other San Francisco-related blogs and a photo blog, among a few other elements.

This isn’t enough to overpower a site like Citysearch…yet. But metroblogging is new. Given that some metroblogs are racking up impressive numbers (Gothamist—a New York metroblog—gets 30,000 unique visits a day), it won’t be long before they evolve to cover the kind of material that is Citysearch’s bread and butter. Gothamist already has sections on food, sports, weather, and arts/events. There’s even a Q&A section called “Ask Gothamist.” Try getting a direct response to a question from Citysearch!

AP has a nice piece on metroblogs.

12/22/04 | 0 Comments | Metroblogging to trump city sites?

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