The Merc was part of Jay Rosen’s original Beat Blogging experiment back in 2007-8. The blog was for the Green Tech reporter, Matt Naumann. It’s still up here: http://www.greentechbeat.com/. But it’s been defunct for several years.

One of the big questions at the time was: Which platform? We used Ning because it offered a lot more social features. The idea was to get the reporter’s sources on a network together and talking to each other. Ning offered profiles, communications tools, blogs, etc. The overall results was mixed. It didn’t develop the engagement we had hoped.

Matt faced several challenges. One was that I don’t think his bosses really bought the concept, and so questioned the use of his time. Another was that Ning, while pretty easy, was not as intuitive as many of us thought. Matt, prior to that, had been our automotive writer, and wrote one of our most popular blogs, so he was certainly comfortable and a believer in social media.

Finally, it’s worth nothing that across the Beat Blogging group, people used several different platforms: Ning, WordPress, and Google groups. I believe that the folks just using plain old fashioned email groups reported higher level of engagements. Of course, these have the downside of not necessarily being public in terms of people being able to simply read without being participants.

One other note: I’d suggest that if people in Digital First papers are going to start doing this, there be an official policy decree from an editor. For instance, currently we’re not supposed to let folks read our stories before they’re published. If I posted a column un-edited on the blog, I would technically be violating policy. I think it’s worth changing that, but that ought to be made clear before people just jump in.

Finally, on a practical level, getting at the company to set up a blog for you is a major chore, because blogs are centralized in Denver. Even the most minor tweak is an epic undertaking, and if they start getting tons of requests from every reporter wanting a blog, there will be a major freak out. Which raises another question: Should reporters be able to set up their own work blog? Starting a tumblr or a wordpress blog is a snap, but does the company definitely want 2,000 new blogs scattered across various platforms (and thus, probably not giving any revenue boost) or does it want to wait to update the current blogging system so that it’s to start and maintain blogs?

Just a couple thoughts. I’m a fan of beat blogging, so hope this is getting a lot of notice.