During the last weeks the editors of bloggingportal have been discussing the future of bloggingportal. The attempt to kick-start a public debate on our editors’ blog here failed, partly because we had some server problems last week. So I thought I should give it another plug here.
So why do we need to talk about the future?
- bloggingportal.eu is a loose network of bloggers. The site has been developed and maintained by volunteers in their free time which is not the most sustainable structure…
- There is only a small core group of bloggers that is actively engaged.
- There is no permanent organisational structure.
- And you might have guessed it: no money, no funding, nothing
- The page is rather slow and could certainly be made more user-friendly.
- We don’t have enough users – only a highly specialized group of EU geeks.
- The link to national blogospheres is missing.
What needs to be done?
- We need to think about whether we need bloggingportal at all? What is the niche for bloggingportal?
- We need more bloggers to be actively engaged in the project.
- We need more users and more visibility.
- We have to think about what core functions should be developed? How to attract more users?
- How to organise permanent links to national blogospheres? How to get an overview of EU debates in different national blogospheres?
- What are possible incentives for bloggers that decide to help bloggingportal?
- We might need a complete re-development of the page (new design, new user interface, new functions…). But what exactly are the functions we should focus on? (are categories or tags necessary? what about different languages?) And the underlying problem is how to finance a new version of bloggingportal? Or is there any volunteer out there who would like to develop a new version of bloggingportal?
The solutions?
- Where to get funding for a redesign of bloggingportal? I think the only agreement we have is that we should not seek EU funding for the site.
- Should bloggingportal become some sort of social media business? Is there a business model somewhere?
- Is sponsorship the solution? If yes who would be interested?
- Is there a chance to cooperate with NGOs or private foundations or other institutions? Who would be interested?
- How to create a sustainable service that is a credible and independent source for EU content in social media?
- How to get more people interested in collaborating with bloggingportal?
- How to attract more editors and users?
As you can see: a huge list of problems and a lot of question marks! We would like to hear from you – whatever your background is. Maybe you can help us to think a bit outside the box. Are there any similar projects around that we could draw inspiration from (organizational structure and design/usability)? Do you know anyone that might be interested in getting involved? Do you have a good idea for the future of bloggingportal?
Just leave a comment here or start the debate on our editors’ blog.
I have the pleasure and the honor to be the first to post my humble opinion (Hope this is the good place to do it though). I am certainly not a prominent blogger or even actor of the web based Euro sphere ; but, as I am 7 hours away from Brussels Bloggingportal is one of the main and first source of Euronews for myself.
I don’t have the abilities to be of a great help on the day to day editorial aspect of the portal. I can however put my computer skills in and used my geeky self for the good of Europe. “ That’s for the “How may I help you” part.
On the more general and other points, I’d like to give some ideas, for what they’re worth :
– On the funding issue: one simple way is to let user contribute to ‘the cause’ in the way of a community media paid by and for the citizens. However, that might end up with the bloggers being the main contributors. Budget transparency will come in pair of course.
– Maybe bloggingportal could also be a source by itself (there is already the blog of course, but…) So far it is just aggregating blogs and feeds, finding a solution to view at least some of the articles directly in a unified interface could be of interest.
– With this centralized viewing could come a centralized interaction : visitor should be able to ask questions and react to posts, in a way that the comments are visible easily for everybody and not just at the bottom of one blog page.
However, the “cloud media” aspect of the portal is to be preserve.
– A ‘real life’ gathering of bloggers and other people involved would be – I think – of great benefit for everybody. I general, giving bloggers tools to communicate between them is a good idea.
Of course, all these ideas are great – or so I think – but the key issue is money… I try my luck at the lottery I promise.
Anyway, “thumbs up” for Bloggingportal, and I’ll be glad to give a hand.
thanks a lot for starting the debate
We have been thinking whether to use flattr or google ads to at least pay for the server. However, the problem is that we do not seem to have enough users to actually earn enough money…
The issue whether to offer full text aggregation is a difficult one. After all we founded bloggingportal to drive traffic to the individual blogs. Moreover, there are copyright issues involved if we re-publish posts without the consent of the blogger.
I agree: more ‘real life’ meetings for bloggers should be organised. Again, it is a funding issues – although (a few) bloggingportal editors managed to meet a few times in Brussels and London in the past months. And there are ideas to organise a EU blogger confererence…
By the way: We are always looking for new editors. No technical skills required – in fact most of us have no IT backgroud! So if you want to join – do let us know
On the technical skills thing, my point is : I am not particularly fit to serve as en editor given my job, background, … After that, I’m not more stupid than anybody and can give an opinion.
However, I have some solid skills and experience in website, coding, that could be useful to redesign the site, push it up in the search ranking, or even implement new functions…
Great! If you want to get involved in the future developments around bloggingportal, let me know and I add you to our editor mailing list where we discuss these kind of issues. If you don’t want to be involved in editorial work – that is fine. There are many people that are not active editors but still contribute from time to time… (Editors basically just select the posts on the main page – a couple of clicks, that is all; at the moment we are also manually tagging things – but that might be dropped soon…
I’d certainly like to get involved and help as much as I can.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by kosmopolit, kosmopolit. kosmopolit said: In other news: I blogged about the (uncertain) future of @bloggingportal http://ow.ly/1YeDs No comments = indicator for 'no future'? [...]
Hi Kosmopolit, had noticed the future of bloggingportal debate, but (as usual) had been so busy I didn’t get round to responding to the editors’ blog.
So very glad you’ve kicked things off here too.
In the first eurobloggers virtual meet-up we said that getting eurobloggers to all focus on one thing and reach a conclusion was rather like herding cats. I think that’s going to be the case on this issue too.
Funding is definitely the big problem – most bloggers seem to be strapped for cash at the moment, so a subscription model would not be ideal unless it was just once a year to pay for the domain/ hosting. If not the EU institutions, would the Monnet Foundation be the sort of thing you were thinking? Or would that prejudice the aim to being pro a certain type of Europe and put off potentially more nationally-focused or sceptical bloggers?
What about contacting something like the Open Society institute (kind of like a Dragon’s Den approach?)? Or the Council of Europe? Or the social partners?
But for any of these we’d need a clear of what it’s all for!
Yes, there’s also still the question of what we want the bloggingportal / EUblogosphere to be and to be for.
I’m not convinced that a more professionalised, streamlined set up is the way forward precisely because I’m not sure there needs to be a “way forward”.
It plays a bit into whether we want to be committed to providing the EU news and comment that the mainstream media don’t cover – or whether we’re blogging as passionate individuals on an irregular basis.
I’m definitely in the latter camp. My life over the past few months has meant I’ve been unable to write the EU stories/ comment pieces I’ve wanted to. I’ve not even been able to comment on the blogs of others – an essential element for crowdsourcing an intelligent view of whatever issue is under discussion.
I’m no expert on the technology (I was amazed when I worked out how to install a wordpress plug in all by myself!), but I just wonder if bloggingportal is a bit too complicated for the potential user? If we could fund a redesign somehow, is there a way it could be made simpler and easier to use?
There must also be a cheap and easy way of pushing it up the google rankings so that people searching are more likely to click into it and take a look around at what else is there?
I know that’s all more questions than answers, but you did say debate…
Thanks for your comment – and sorry for the late reply. (I am also more in the “irregular camp” of bloggers
I agree with you: herding cats is probably easier.
The funding is indeed a problem. And it is not only the money but also the whole process around it. Somebody needs to invest time to write a funding application, define the main aims, contact different actors etc. I was indeed thinking of private foundations although they are all very different and operate with different funding procedures… Open Society, Monnet Foundations are examples – although the latter does not seem to be a grant-making foundation. But again the problem is manpower I guess.
You are not the only one complaining about the geeky design of bloggingportal. This is one reason why we started thinking about a relaunch… And yes, we definitely need a simple, user-friendly interface that is self explanatory.
We do need blogging portal, it’s a useful tool, everything is in one place.
Incentives would be that the blogger would get publicity?
In terms of financing while I don’t have any real ideas (maybe plug harder for donations) I feel it is important that bloggingportal remains impartial and doesn’t be seen to be in the pockets of any business or institutions that anyone could perceive to be creating bias.
I feel it would be better to struggle on as it is rather than obtain private finance or grants from institutions of the EU (or anywhere else) or NGO’s.
Blogging Portal for the sake of credibility must remain impartial by being run by volunteers.
[...] what does the future hold for bloggingportal? I blogged about our problems in the past and called for a bigger EU blogosphere. As you can imagine not much has been solved [...]