hburgnews.com

If you’re wondering why it’s been a little quiet here lately, I recently started a new job, I’m starting work on a new documentary, and I’ve been packing up to move across town. So, I probably won’t be able to devote as much time to hburgnews as I have in the past. But that might not matter so much if Harrisonburg had it’s own Digg.

A big part of what I do as a news blogger is sort through news stories, and pass interesting local links along to readers. And that’s essentially what Digg does, but it’s a more democratic, collective effort. Up until now, Digg has been one big, popular site, full of national and international news. But a recent post on CNET leads me to believe that’s where Digg is headed.

…one question suggested “geotagging” for stories to group them into local news stories, something that could make the site legitimately compete with sites like Outside.in and city blog networks like Gothamist. “Yes,” [Digg creator Kevin] Rose said. “We’ve thought about this as well and it would be really cool if we could start to group different events around you.” [Digg CE0 Jay] Adelson added that Digg has “a few projects on the way…think 2009, realistically, for some of this stuff.”

Just as we now have a local Craigslist, we may one day have a local Digg. Of course, like Craigslist, it could take quite a while for an effort like that to reach a city the size of Harrisonburg. But I think the popularity of hburgnews proves there’s a market for it here.