What Do Blog Readers Want?

Random image: Balsam, or Peruvian Impatiens

I wrote to Saul Qersdyn last week to ask whether he thought blog readership was falling off lately. Qersdyn, you may recall, had the ambitious goal a while back of aggregating all the blogs in Union County's 21 municipalities and was surprised to find out that Plainfield alone had more than 20 blogs. Since then, many have become dormant and recent late-summer stats for Plaintalker showed a decline in page views.

Qersdyn said he had renewed interest in his Roselle Park blog after changing the format from consecutive posts to more use of videos of meetings and such. The viewer can then watch the meetings at will.

The alternative that Plainfield bloggers seem to favor is attending meetings and reporting on items of interest. Given the length of city meetings (four or five hours sometimes) it seems unlikely that anyone would sit down in front of a computer that long. They are also broadcast on local cable channels anyway, for those so inclined to watch a whole meeting on television.

It is an interesting choice, because Plainfield blogs could be said to filter what goes on, while Qersdyn leaves it up to the viewer to draw conclusions by taking in the whole meeting.

On his blog that highlights all 21 municipalities, "In the 21," Qersdyn has a box that features the latest posts. It was good to see Plainfield prominently featured, as some of us blog daily.

Perhaps unfortunately for our dear readers (if I may borrow a phrase from Jay Jefferson Cooke), adding videos may require more expertise than some of us have. If I knew how, I would post videos on specific topics or issues rather than raw footage of a meeting, but that would mean learning how to edit.

I greatly admire the videos that former CN photographer Andre Malok now produces for the Star-Ledger, and the New York Times videos certainly enhance the online platform. But I am probably too cheap anyway to invest in a video camera and will have to plod along posting old-fashioned stories on city happenings.

Probably the most ambitious blogger Plainfield had in the past year was Tony Rucker, who did use audio and video as well as writing, but he has not posted since June 28. So for now I guess you are stuck with us old-school bloggers until another multi-media maven comes along.

--Bernice