The 25th edition of the Virginia Blog Carnival is up at NoVa Democrat. Lots of fine writing from the best bloggers in Virginia. Go check it out.
In the meantime, Kilo isn’t entirely thrilled with what’s become of the VBC lately:
When it started it was supposed to highlight Va bloggers talents and leave politics in the rear view mirror. This would would ensure a good response in traffic from the blogosphere. Traffic is the purpose of Carnivals. Readers from other states have little interest in reading about Virginia politics.
(…)
But that is exactly what the carnival has NOT become as 90% is politics. I fell into that trap and submitted a couple political posts, but I have stopped submitting anything now. There has been some cheap shots taken in the past, and it continues this week.
And J. Sarge feels the same way:
The latest edition of the Virginia Blog Canival is posted over at NOVA Democrat. He does a good job sampling posts from the blogosphere. Although there is no partisan editorializing, there is some nose-rubbing regarding the 2005 elections. I wish stuff like that would stay out of the Carnival
I agree with Sarge on that point. As to the broader point that Kilo makes, I agree that good content is one of the key factors in making a successful carnival and that people outside Virginia aren’t really going to want to read posts solely about Virginia politics (although I’d bet they be interested in posts about Virginia, its history, natural resources, etc.). The other part of a successful carnival, though, is promotion and, to be honest, that really hasn’t been happening with the VBC lately. At the very least, I think that everyone who participates in the Carnival should put a link to it on their blog when it goes up; I usually try to do it within a day or so. Beyond that, we need to come up with ideas to get some of the higher profile bloggers, ideally ones located in Virginia themselves, to link to the carnival. That, ultimiately, is what drives up traffic.
Update @ 11:50pm: ImNotEmril has additional comments on the state of the VBC that I agree with completely. My personal thoughts about the VBC is that I’d like to believe that it could be nonpartisan……that we could have contributions from all sides that would be presented neutrally regardless of who was hosting. Also, I’d love to see more posts that were about…… Virginia…..not Viriginia politics, but just Virginia. This is my adopted home and, despite the fact that our leaders on both sides of the aisle are complete idiots, I think there’s still alot to lve about this place.
Update 2/28/06: Kilo has another post on this subject, and includes a link to comments to his original post.
Technorati Tag: Blog Carnival, Virginia Blog Carnival
