ESPN NFL Blog Network duplicates what already exists
I’ll be doing more with this in the next few days, but for now, I suppose I’m just out to prove a point.
What ESPN’s NFL Blog Network has done right now is, masterfully, duplicated the strategy that has made so many other blogs successful in recent time:
1) Take people with relative clout in the industry.
2) Have the work the sources they know to gain what new news they usually would. (Meaning, the former Vikings beat writer has excellent Vikings stories and Vikings connections–business as usual.)
3) The rest of the time, have them link up other NFL stories around the league and provide a little analysis.
At its core, then, what has the ESPN NFL Blog Network become? An NFL news aggregator. It’s another version of Pro Football Talk or AOL FanHouse–just replace Florio or MDS with Matt Mosley or Bill Williamson. (disclaimer: I read both of those blogs religiously.)
Again, we’re stuck with the same problem that spawned this whole discussion. What is the typical NFL beat writer to do? They’re losing their jobs left and right because places like the NFL Blog Network (and countless other blogs) have become the regular stop for NFL news–but those blogs get all their NFL news from the team beat reporters.
Well, how about getting the news straight from the horse’s mouth? Introducing, the NFL Beat Reporter Blog Network.
This is simply a list of the blogs of every beat reporter in the NFL. We’ll be doing lots of fun things with this, but for now, enjoy the actual list itself, the small widget to the right (which shows the latest posts from the network of blogs), and the subscribe-able RSS feed itself–so you can get all the beat reporter blog posts sent to your favorite RSS reader. (If you click through to the Yahoo! Pipes, link, give it a moment–it’s loading a lot of blogs.)
Bear with us as we work out some kinks. This feature will grow and expand with time. If you encounter any issues or know of a beat writer blog not listed, please drop me a line and let me know so it can be addressed.
[...] asked for it…here it is. In the vein of the NFL version, we’ve now created the MLB Beat Writer Blog Network, which you can see pumping on the right [...]