MNSpeak.com

Politicians now have yet another way to have their ears to the ground, to feel the pulse of their constituents, and to figure out which way the wind is blowing — at least amongst the wired populace.

MNSpeak.com is like a cross between the mn.general Usenet bulletin board and City Pages, with Scoop-like features that let readers comment and contribute. It's arty and hip (read: left-leaning), with very cool photography of these Twin Cities and an attitude.

Blog readers will especially enjoy the MNSpeak Aggregator, the aggregator for the rest of us. (An aggregator is software that pulls content from many web sites, using RSS, and displays it in one place, so you don't have to click down a long blogroll or bookmark list.) By visiting it, you can quickly survey 200 or so Minnesota blogs, including 44 political blogs from the left, right, and Centrisity. It's a nice collection if you don't want to (or have the inclination to) roll your own. I am doing something similar on my education web site, Minnesota Education Reform News.

We now return to our regularly scheduled, technobabble-free programming.

MEDIA