FAQ

What is a Placeblog?

A placeblog is a blog about the lived experience of a place. What do we mean by "lived experience"? The "lived experience" can be the local political news of a place, the social news of a place, the arts news of a place, etc. So, placeblogs are often about political issues, community news, restaurant reviews, music scenes, architecture, visual arts, etc. Any aspect of life in a place that makes it different from other places, or information that tells you something about the lifestyle of the place. (examples to be provided shortly)

Placeblogs are often kept by just folks--sometimes called "citizen journalists." Some of these "citizen journalists" used to be journalists, but having been a journalist doesn't automatically make your blog a placeblog. Some placeblogs are kept by local business people, too. These blogs will have content about the business itself, as well as information about the place where the business is located.

How do I know if my blog is a Placeblog?

Have a business blog, but you also write about events in your community? If so, then you've got a business placeblog.

Just because you conduct your business in a particular place (as most do) doesn't mean your blog is automatically a placeblog. If your blog posts are general, and about what you do, not where you do it, then you've got a regular business blog. That's a good thing! But it's not a placeblog.

If your blog is about issues, news, food, etc going on in your community--you've got a placeblog.

Are you writing restaurant reviews or other interesting food-related tid-bits about the food scene where you live? Then you have a food placeblog.

But if you're writing about restaurants all over the place, or recipes or other general food related stuff, it's not a food placeblog (even if you mention your place on your About page.)

A personal blog can be a placeblog If there are posts about the place where one lives--what it feels like, where you've visited, issues, etc. A good personal placeblog tells stories about life in a place

Still unsure? Email tish at placeblogger.com or lisa at placeblogger.com

What about Real Estate Blogs?

We accept some blogs by real estate professionals -- but only if their blog posts contain community news, and not just about the real estate market. If your blog is simply new listings, there are many sites for you to use to spread the word -- but Placeblogger is not one of them. So far, we are not banning real-estate related blogs altogether, which means we must make a judgment call on whether or not we believe the content on your site would be of interest to the average visitor to Placeblogger. For an example of a real-estate related blog we do believe in sharing with Placeblogger's visitors, see Curbed LA.

Hey! I can't find any breaking news on site thing! What's the deal!

Placeblogger is an aggregation site--not a breaking news site. We aggregate blogs corresponding to geographic areas (towns, cities, counties, states.) Most of the placblogs in our site can be found by searching the name of the city or town you are interested in finding. Some cities and towns aren't listed yet, so please let us know via email

If you want to find blogs that might be carrying breaking news, use our Search feature in the upper right corner of the page. But only to locate the city where the breaking news may be happening--not by the news event. Our Search feature specific and not like Google :)

Who's running this site anyway?

Placeblogger.com was founded by Lisa Willams in 2006. Several years before the founding of Placeblogger.com, Lisa ran H2oTown, a placeblog about the city of Watertown, MA. Lisa is affiialted with the MIT Media Lab, and is a frequent speaker on citizen journalism.

In January 2008, Tish Grier came on to help with the site, do community development, and other things (like write this FAQ). Tish started her first blog in 2004, and continues to blog at the Constant Observer a media-focused blog. She is a frequent speaker at conferences on citizen journalism and community development, a teacher on blogging and social media for small busiensses and also has diverse experience in conversational marketing, and crowdsourcing.

Placeblogger was originally funded on what could be considered "eBay money" (as Lisa sometimes calls our humble beginnings.) In 2007, we received a one-year Knight News Challenge grant to improve the site and continue our mission to uncover placeblogs that other search engines don't reveal in searches for local content.

How do I enter a placeblog

The best way to enter a placeblog, is to first check to see if it hasn't already been entered. We comb the hyperlocal blogsphere daily and add placeblogs regularly. If you don't see your placeblog, then the best way to enter a placeblog is in two steps

1. Join the Placeblogger site

then

2. Add your Placeblog