Joel Achenbach Moves Towards the Blogging Light

As a follow to my post about the AP’s not-blog, I felt I should point out Joel Achenbach’s new blog for the Washington Post, called the Achenblog. Against the same checklist I used for the AP blog, slightly revised, here’s how it does:

[x] Reverse chronological
[x] Fixed, clear base URL
[x] Permalinks
[x] RSS feed
[x] Goofy name
[x] Name includes “blog”
[x] Uses blog software
[x] Posts whenever he has something to post
[x] Casual writing style (and then some!)
[x] Has an About section
[x] Writes often about blogging and bloggers
[x] Encourages feedback*
[?] Free of pre-editing and/or no extensive editing process
[ ] Category and date archives (no categories)
[ ] Blog roll
[ ] Allows comments
[ ] Has trackbacks
[ ] Frequent links out
[ ] Participates in wider blog community
[ ] Experienced blogger
[ ] Site has a clear focus on a niche

You could argue that any one of these points is not necessary in order to be a blog, and you’d be right.  But in aggregate, if you hit a lot of these boxes, you’re doing well.  I hope the WP decides to check a few more boxes, specifically comments and trackback, soon.

* I emailed him from the link to his email on every post, and he wrote back. That’s not too shabby.

Posted by Travis Smith on 03/07 at 10:41 AM • Blogging News
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