AOL has announced the official launch of its Digital City site, which it claims offers a new approach to geo-blogging: “showcasing original content with a local slant, but global appeal”.
It covers fairly wide topic remit (as you’d expect from a huge media player) including arts, fashion, comedy, shopping, politics, media, celebrity news/gossip, sports, and bizarre stuff.
Geo-blogging is really just a bit of jargon to suggest that AOL has found a bunch of bloggers from various cities (US ones at present, it seems) to write on local issues. While that may have global appeal, I’d be more excited if at least some of the content was geo-targeted, in the same way as many of the ads are sure to be.
The design is fairly tabloid, and there’s at least a passing nod to London visitors with the addition of The Sun newspaper and All in London in the lengthy blogroll, but it feels very US-centric at present.
Whether the portal is just too general to appeal to anyone remains to be seen. “From the serious to the irreverent, Digital City is sure to inform and entertain readers,” said Chris Spanos, General Manager of AOL Local. Will it amass a large following of regular readers, or simply survive on search engine visitors and a healthy dose of cross-promotion from AOL’s other online property?
What do you think of Digital City?
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