At the suggestion of Tony Karrer and the invitation of Nancy White, I recently joined Networks and Communities Connection. It is a content hub started by Nancy that collects and organizes information around communities and networks. Tony runs a similar content hub, elearnng learning. His firm, TechEmpower, supplies the platform for both hubs and a number of others.
I spoke with Tony recently. He said that the goal is to provide a vetted source for content around a topic for the benefit of the readers and the writers. The contributors are selected and monitored by the site leader. This gives readers a trusted resource to explore new content on the topic in an organized way as it emerges.
These topic hubs go beyond the typical content aggregation sites as they also provide additional benefits to the contributors. The site can generate greater exposure through its key word optimization, bring in new readers and help organize the content. This last feature is what is especially unique.
If you click on a blog on the site it goes to a page that provides content from that specific blog nicely organized along a number of dimensions. There is the latest and the best according the site algorithms. In the key word column, the content on the blog is organized according to keywords grouped by concepts, tools type, and year. So you and your readers can see your content key words exposed and organized. Clicking on any one will take you to the blog posts relevant to the key word. This same listing of key words is also displayed on the individual contributors blog. You can see mine if you scroll down the left column, along with a link to the Networks and Communities Connection site and the ability to search the site.
The same format is carried up a level on the home page to organize the content of all the contributors. When I looked last week, the post selected at the top of the best post list from my blog was Business Blogs Trump Social Networking Sites as New Business Drivers. There is confirming evidence on this rating as this post was also the most popular of my posts syndicated at Social Media Magazine.
At the moment, you will only see a limited number of the most recent blog posts from my blog on Networks and Communities Connection as Typepad does not currently allow access beyond these. WordPress also limits access but Blogger is more generous and provides all historical data. Tony is working to expand this coverage.
I think these content hubs offer a great service connecting reader and bloggers. I look forward to participation.
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