Niche News and the Blogosphere

From Language Log to KnitHacker

Maxwell’s Tech Program for Thursday, December 27, 2018

Aside from seeing pictures and videos of cute dogs or cats, what do people expect from the Internet? One thing they want is solutions to problems, whether that’s “How many teaspoons are there in a tablespoon?” or “What should I look for in choosing daycare for my child?”

With our hobbies, work, or passions, though, we don’t have just a short, one-time list of questions that we can Google the answers to and be done with it. We have ongoing growth and learning that lead us to new, deeper questions as we go along. For centuries there have been professional journals and hobbyist periodicals that spoke to that need for deeper, ongoing conversation about the general issues in a field. The Internet has broadened that field by making it possible for individuals and smaller organizations to write regularly for audiences of others who share their interests. Blogs are a means of distributing that content in a way that makes it easy to keep up-to-date with it.

This month’s tech program addresses questions about how to find blogs and other sites with niche news that are relevant to your interests. We’ll also look at software and services that facilitate keeping up with those sites.