Looking inward

The first blogger I ever read regularly, or possibly at all, was Camilla Henrikke at wallflower.nu. This fact is commemorated by having her listed at the top of my links to other people's blogs. Second on my list is Samantha at sdfsdf.wox.org. I found Sammie's site by way of a link from a site linked by Camilla. I visit both Camilla and Sammie's sites on a daily basis. When I think of blogging, they are what comes to mind. In a large part, they are responsible for me getting into blogging.

Camilla is based in Norway, while Sammie is on the East coast of Australia. From the start, blogging for me has been something international in scope. My Sitemeter shows me that I have visitors from all over the country and all over the world - some intentional, some accidental. I have always tried to keep that in mind in my writing.

So the experience of NEPA Blogs is something completely different. The subject matter of this blog is a geographical region entirely within a two-hour drive from my house. (Well, maybe longer for the bits not serviced by major roads.) The target audience is completely different, too - it's really aimed at people from Northeastern Pennsylvania, or people who used to live here, or people who are planning to come here. Instead of turning my awareness outward towards the rest of the world, on NEPA Blogs I am turning it inward, close to home.

The structure is different, too. NEPA Blogs is primarily a link site. Its main goal is to provide links to as many bloggers in Northeastern Pennsylvania as I can locate. Secondarily it provides links to non-blog sites about NEPA. It is not a site about content: we may introduce some websites with some musings and stories about the sites themselves, but the intention is not to be creating new content, but rather to point the way to other sites that contain content.

Gort from Gort42 is on board at Nepa Blogs. He has an extensive knowledge of the local blogging scene and local goings-on. I have general knowledge of local websites and a handful of bloggers, and I am a tireless researcher. We have added lots of links to the new site in just two days - links that may be of absolutely no interest for someone not from Northeast PA. What would someone from New South Wales care about "Nuangola's UNOFFICIAL Home on the Web"? Why would someone from Istanbul want to read about Nanticoke actor Nick Adams's short, sad life? But it's there, it's available.

For me, NEPA Blogs will be a sort of counterpoint to Another Monkey. It's not written with a general audience in mind, but all are welcome. Who knows, maybe you'll find something interesting at Capt'n Clint's Place, or the Nanticoke Historical Society website. And while you're at it, you might just stop by the blogs for k8, or Rochelle, or Ben Folds Laundry, or...