andrewzahler.com

I’ve been using the collaborative journalism tools from Publish2 more frequently at work. So when I saw Daniel Bachhuber at Publish2 had authored a WordPress plugin, I wanted to try it. Below are links and tweets that other journalists and I saved today relating to MSNBC’s acquisition of the EveryBlock project.

MSNBC.com Likely Will Add EveryBlock Feeds To Its Local Section In ‘Next Few Months’
paidContent | August 17, 2009

ryansholin: Over at Publishing2.0, I’ve gathered my EveryBlock and YCombinator notes just for you: http://bit.ly/2yArEy
Twitter | August 17, 2009

onemoreryan: Good grief, maybe @everyblock didn’t WANT to be acquired by a newspaper co! Why would they? Even a chain limits locales. MSNBC offers scale.
Twitter | August 17, 2009

michael_duvall: RT @chicagonow Twitter gives props to EveryBlock – Breaking Tweets Chicago http://bit.ly/44ioW
Twitter | August 17, 2009

MSNBC.com Buys EveryBlock as Interest in Local Content Grows | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD
All Things Digital | August 17, 2009

Reflections of a Newsosaur: How did newspapers lose Everyblock?
newsosaur.blogspot.com | August 17, 2009

MSNBC.com acquires EveryBlock
blog.everyblock.com | August 17, 2009

EveryBlock acquisition and me
Holovaty.com | August 17, 2009

At first blush, I’m impressed by the ease of use. The plugin is highly customizable, but I started largely with the default settings. I do intend to go in and figure out some better styling for the links.

To create the list above was simple.

1. Start a new post. The Publish 2 Link Assist – which I enabled under Users -> Your Profile (scroll to the bottom) – pops a sidebar to the right of the new post interface. The sidebar displays links from whatever Publish2 URL you enter. While enabling Link Assist, you can customize this. I directed it to my link page but I may go back to the default page of all users’ recent links.
2. Find a link you want to share (you can filter by tags) and click the “link” or “Add link and details/tweet/video” button. The first inserts the link into your post. The second will supply all the information you set the plugin to include on its setting page. I used the “details” option for  the list above.

And that’s it.

I love the underlying principle of Publish2: curation. It’s the role I relish most at work, wading through the online information glut to pick out the best. Publish2’s tools make saving and sharing these links a breeze.

For this post, I took a topic that users had curated down to 27 items. From there, I picked out a handful that I liked (including my own, of course!). From the potential torrent of Google results relating to EveryBlock, I was able to grab some standout items.

I look forward to playing with this useful plugin more, especially the sidebar widget capabilities.

More links:

• If you want to read more about Publish2’s projects, follow the Publishing 2.0 blog.
• Here’s more about the company.
• Here’s a good summary of the principles behind the project.