Saturday, March 01, 2008

Blogging in Oakland

Chip Johnson had a great article in the SF Chronicle on Oakland and the state of blogging in our city today. "Small band of bloggers keeps eye on Oakland." Turns out the blosophere - at least the political one regarding our city - is quite small in Oakland. The local paper is stretched to cover the whole East Bay...and so much goes unnoticed, un-debated, and un-questionned. The article ordained "www.abetteroakland.com" as the number 1 blog of Oakland (political) and included an interesting quote:

"When I [Chip Johnson] called her [blogger at www.abetteroakland .com] Wednesday, she reluctantly accepted a compliment as the city's No. 1 blog site, then complained about Oakland's lack of news coverage - and a smaller blogosphere than Great Falls, Mont., whose population of 56,000 compares with nearly 400,000 in Oakland."

What does that say about Oakland? I'm not sure, but it makes me wonder when we live in such a technologically advanced and politically motivated area why are there so few bloggers out there addressing the emerging needs, vision and tension in our city?

2 comments:

Corn Dog said...

Ha. I just put this on Friends of Farmer Joe's blog but didn't ask the question about why there are so few bloggers addressing current issues in our city. I think blogging takes a lot of time and though you may be good at politics you may not be good at writing or blogging. Personally I like to blog but stink at politics. I can't keep the players straight. I'm playing my bad memory card again.

I can't even read the v-work tonight. I'm going to screen scrape it and send it to you.

Monte said...

I think you've nailed it. Maybe there's not a lot of folks who are both politically conversant and blog savy. I was struck by the comparison though in the article about the number of such blogs in the city across the bay vis-a-vis Oakland. Maybe you can change the curve.....www.corndogforabetteroakland.org?