Community Blogs

One of the most informative and useful products of blogging's current popularity is the community blog. While community blogs aren't necessary new, they are to me, and that may be because they aren't getting the attention they deserve, making them difficult to come upon without looking.

In the Boston area there are a number of good ones to keep you up-to-date on the news in your area and even let you add to it. The blog 9Neighbors is one such example. It covers five areas, Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, Newton and Somerville, and has news and different topic sections for each place.

It offers communities for people to post news from their area and has the readers vote on the most useful and interesting stories, which are displayed most prominently on the site. It also functions as a separate blog about 9Neighbors, which offers updates and information on the community. That blog also features a local photo contest called Shoot9N and the top entries are posted there every month. One of the most best parts of the blog is the useful local content posted on it, like this interactive map of local potholes, which readers are encouraged to add to.

The site is run by Rick Burnes, a journalist who has worked at NYTimes.com, Google, The Moscow Times and The New Bedford Standard Times. From 9Neighbors you can navigate to his personal blog, where he covers various current events and posts statistics for 9Neighbors.

Another good example of community blogging is Universal Hub. This site is a collection of all the best writing from blogs in the Boston area. It serves a similar purpose as 9Neighbors by providing local news that isn't always covered by the mainstream media.

Providing news and insight for a more specific audience is H2otown, the community blog of Watertown. It includes pictures and videos and is written in a strong and entertaining voice to keep local residents involved.

Community blogs definitely fill a need, especially in smaller communities whose news and events are never covered by the Globe and aren't covered well-enough by local newspapers interested in covering big news to sell papers.

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