The PNW Topic Hotlist - The First Year

About three years ago I made a decision to step back and withdraw from some of the activities I was involved in, to create some space in my life, and to see what might come up to fill that space.

As a software engineer, programmer, consultant, I figured that I might get involved in some open source project. For that I would need the time I did not have at the time.

Nothing came up right away, and the space remained unfilled for a while until 2004 when I started this blog and became engrossed in the election that year. Still, even then I did not see this as being what it has become - a daily engagement with the world around me in a way I've never been engaged before.

When I began blogging I was focused on the Iraq war. But I soon became engrossed in the Gregoire - Rossi election recount, and I soon discovered the local and regional blogosphere, and eventually was able to meet an lot of the people who were writing the blogs I was reading. It has been an educational and rewarding experience; coming into contact with intelligent and passionate people, and learning about the issues at a level I never would have bothered before.

These days I probably write more about local issues, as these issues often more directly and immediately affect my life, and they are also the issues I can perhaps play a more active role in with respect to the ongoing discussion we all engage in as participants in our communities.

Along the way I also saw something I felt I could uniquely contribute to the progressive blogosphere which was my technical background with Web based systems and tools. I saw a lot of chatter from various sites, sometimes aggregated together through generalized sites such as the NW Portal or LeftyBlogs. However, these sites didn't organize the clutter in a way that could better group what people were writing about at a subject matter level. If I wanted to read all the stories people were writing about the election recount, for example, I'd have to use a search engine, or rely on tagging technology that wasn't always satisfying.

Some bloggers tried referencing multiple blog entries in their own blog entries to help coalesce the result of a number of bloggers writing about the same topic, but this was clearly not convenient to do.

That's where the idea for the PNW Topic Hotlist came from.

If I could aggregate the content from multiple blogs, looking for like subject matter, and then present it in a concise format, any blogger that wanted to could embed that content in their blog's sidebar. If multiple bloggers were writing about the same topic it would automatically find the entries and group them together for easy access. That was the goal and that's what I did.

A year ago this week I introduced the PNW Topic Hotlist.

The beginnings were fairly humble. I was aggregating only about a dozen local blogs. I contacted a number of bloggers and asked if they would consider displaying it on their blog. A few graciously accepted. Some didn't quite understand what it was. As the year went by I made enhancements to it, improving how one would format and configure it, increasing the number of blogs being aggregated and listed, fine-tuning how it discovered and grouped blog entries by topic for display.

Today there are 56 blogs from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington providing content in the PNW Topic Hotlist, updated every 30 minutes. There are a couple dozen blog sites that are displaying the PNW Topic Hotlist, producing a combined six to seven thousand displays each day.

This is not a money making scheme for me. It isn't about providing more exposure for my own blog, although that has been a side effect. It is about organizing our grassroots, and netroots message. Suddenly one voice, perhaps buried in the multitude of blogs out there, can now be better heard because of an association with other voices. The collective voices talking about the same issues can better highlight that issue. If I want to know what people are writing about with regards to the hottest topics I can easily do that via the PNW Topic Hotlist, either via the sidebar feature on many of the blogs I visit, or through the newer full page view.

Many of the enhancements in the past year have come from the great feedback I have received, and I thank those who have provided it for their insights and suggestions. This is an ongoing work in progress, as I continue to consider further ways it can help spread the words we write to a greater audience.

If you haven't checked out the PNW Topic Hotlist I invite you to see for yourself how it might enhance your own blog, or your reading of blogs in the Pacific NW. I'd like to encourage you to help create an even wider audience by adding it to your own sidebar in a prominent location so your readers can easily discover it. The process is simple and I offer my assistance for those that would like it. Anyone who knows me knows that I make myself very available for such help.

Nobody knows what the future will bring, although as bloggers we spend our days speculating about it, but the past year has been one of personal growth and satisfaction in knowing that I've helped do a little with the contributions I've been able to make to grow the progressive blogosphere in the Pacific NW. We have a ways to go, and a lot of issues to tackle, but we're making progress, and the PNW Topic Hotlist will continue to help bring together our shared, but scattered voices in the Pacific NW.