Local Blogging

Beer and Blog Salem is not dead. The event last night at the f/stop Fitzgeralds was fun and informative. The web is an incredible communication tool but doesn't come close to face to face dialog. The presentation last night by Ross was about the inner workings of Wordpress, Facebook and Twitter. There was also a discussion about local blogging, how it can be used to bring information to the locals connected in. A big part of the whole deal is content creation. What drives traffic through the internet is new information distributed through sites like google and linked to from social networks. Salemites.com was created based on the principle that connecting local content together we can make a destination for people to learn about what's happening in Salem. This connection of sites will link readers to new sites, more places to explore. Think of each site as an island, with a volcano shooting lava out of the top each time a blog post is written. The lava cools off into the sea and the island becomes bigger. If all the islands are pushed closer together, the tiny land masses can grow into one larger piece of real estate. The key to it all, is the creation of interesting content that is either very well written or has very good relevant information. A combination of both would be preferable. I use this site and eatsalem.com as laboratories to see what subject people are interested in. What are people talking about online and what are they seeking information about. Anyway, it was fun and f/stop Fitzgeralds was a great place to hang out.