Blocals: Networking is Key

Since Weblogs, Inc. has started blogging in Ohio and New Orleans, blocals returned to my agenda with an answer of Jason Calacanis on the question: “Will local blogs be a big business?” and Jim Kukral’s returning: “Weblogs, Inc. & Walmart, Crushing The Little Guy?” First of all: they are right, both. Scaling blocals to 5o or even more locations is a huge investment. Raising ad-funds as a 5o+ network is a huge gain on the other hand.

Apropos. There’s a relatively huge network around already, operating on global scale: Metroblogging.com by Bode Media, Inc. I was pointed to them by Jason Calacanis in 2004. Sean Bonner and Jason DeFilippo offer nearly 5o blocals around the globe as a bloggers network, not in Ohio yet but in New Orleans therefor. Blogging on lifestyle topics, Metblogs offer a “hyper-local look” at several metropolises.

But where are all the other cities, districts and villages around the world? They are blogged by locals and there will be much more of them in future: specialized on blogging local lifestyle, politics or other topics. A 50+ network seems pretty small to me. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of networks and aggregators. And I’m sure we’ll even see 50+ networks in one single metropolis to have a chance of raising ad-funds at all.