Howard County Bloggers Unite

Some people call Jessica Newburn a curator.

But it’s not a museum she’s running. She’s part of the brains and brawn behind HocoBlogs, an online collection of more than 200 blogs authored by people in and around Howard County.

HocoBlogs was highlighted at a Wednesday panel discussion sponsored by the Howard Technology Council entitled "Local Blogging: A New Media Voice in the Community."

Contributors to HocoBlogs address topics from finding a good hangover, nail polish, restaurant or cigar to buying green real estate.

Panelist Dennis Lane, who authors Tales of Two Cities—a blog dedicated to issues around Ellicott City and Columbia—said finding a blog niche was one way to attract an audience.

He pointed to Howard County photographer David Hobby, whose blog Strobist was voted among the top blogs of 2010 by Time magazine. The premise of the blog: how to take pictures using your camera’s flash.

“There is a whole community of people making a voice,” said panel moderator Dave Kile, vice president of Columbia-based web development firm Ease Technologies. “What does this mean for us as a community, for businesses, for nonprofits? How do we participate?”

Some attendees were already figuring out the answers. Columbia residents Terry and Kathy Sullivan have been running www.winetrailtraveler.com since 2007. Now they’re spreading their knowledge about wineries not just on their site but also through HocoBlogs, Facebook and Twitter—where they have more than 1,300 followers.

For those making their first foray into the world of blogs, Newburn advised: “There’s lots of data, there’s lots of people, and there’s lots of messages.…I would encourage you to go to HocoBlogs or a local blog that you like" and find those with similar interests, she said.

Howard County Tourism video goes viral

Last month, Howard County Tourism & Promotion capitalized on Internet connections, said panelist Dave Bittner, who co-founded multimedia outfit HoCoMoJo. “Howard County Tourism came to us and said, ‘We want to do a promotion for Howard County Restaurant Weeks for the online community. How do we do that?’

“This was something separate from print or TV advertising. They wanted to specifically focus on that audience,” recalled Bittner. He knew if he worked restaurant weeks into HoCoMoJo's podcast And Then There’s That, it would appear on the blog Tales of Two Cities (its author is the podcast's cohost) and would go viral from there as readers linked to it. The podcast showcased comical interviews with chefs from restaurants participating in the Restaurant Weeks. Bittner said: “That campaign, according to tourism, was very successful.”

Howard County Tourism's Executive Director Rachelina Bonacci said, "The video by the team at HoCoMoJo received more views than other videos we have created, because of the popularity of the hosts and their ability to cross-promote with us. Local foodie bloggers, like our fave HowChow, really activated their readers to dine out and have online conversations about their experiences. This is especially important since travelers are making their travel choices online.” Business usually increases among participating venues by about 40 percent during restaurant weeks, said Bonacci, but she did not indicate whether that number changed this year.

As advertisers and organizations mobilize to streamline their messages, the bloggers themselves are starting to organize. “More people are starting to step into the blogging community, where they are finding each other and sharing more aligned information,” said Newburn. “In the last six months, what I’ve seen are the bloggers creating more of their own lists" of the blogs they watch, linking from one blog to the next.

Now that is something your average curator doesn't get to see in her collection every day.

Find the three panelists online:
Dave Bittner, HoCoMoJo
Dennis Lane, Tales of Two Cities, And Then There’s That
Jessie Newburn, HocoBlogs