Learn about and share the diversity, history, sites, sounds, joys, concerns, and news of the Philadelphia region.
Philly Future is a compendium of the best online writers, narrators, blogs, and commentators in the greater Philadelphia region. Our goal is to empower people to learn of and communicate the diversity, history, sites, sounds, joys, concerns, and news of the Philadelphia region. It's what you consider to be important and in need of being heard. It's the news YOU write, for the city and the world.
We endeavor to do this in two ways:
1. Aggregating the best of our regional web and highlighting those in the community that need to be heard. You can read their latest stories by clicking the The Philly Wire link on the main menu. If your blog isn't listed, click here for consideration to be included.
2. Providing tools that allow you to shape the site directly. With an account you can:
- Get your own Philly Future weblog, with it's own address and RSS feed. Your stories will automatically be shown in Philly Future's primary categories. Selected posts will be chosen for the home page.
- Post photos to our photo galleries.
- Take part in comment threads across the site.
In many ways, you can consider Philly Future, Philadelphia's very own Slashdot (not affiliated - but inspired by), with the important addition of our regional aggregator.
If you have an account, just log in. If you don't have an account, create one today.
Once logged in, click "Write the News!" to get started.
This is no "walled garden". If you come here, see something of interest, and click away to a headline at one of the blogs we are aggregating - the site has accomplished it's goal.
Who is providing this and why?
The all volunteer team behind Philly Future can be found here, but it must be said that Philly Future is largely owned by you - the participants of this site. The community helps to shape and direct the course Philly Future will take. All you need is an account to take part.
Who determines who is a "Featured Blogger"?
You do! Philly Future recently opened up the Featured Blog selection process to all members of the site. There are two distinct phases of the process: nominations and polling. Each phase lasts about two days and will take place over the five days immediately preceding the final selection of a new Featured Blog.
The nomination process will allow site visitors to leave comments to nominate deserving blogs. All you need to do is leave suggestions in the comment thread attached to the designated current nominations post. Basic guidelines for the nomination process are as follows:
- Previously Featured Blogs (a list of which is available here) will not be eligible for future consideration.
- A blog cannot appear in two consecutive Featured Blog polls.
- Nominations must be independent local blogs (or of local interest)
The polling process, which selects the final winner, will be decided by registered users of the site selecting from three finalists over two-day span.
How is this site run?
The site is running an open source content management system called CivicSpace. It was the content management solution Howard Dean used in his presidential campaign. It is a solution particularly suited for online community building. This site would not be possible without the wizardry of RSS and the feeds webloggers provide in that format. Nor would it have been possible without the pioneering work of Slashcode, the CMS that Slashdot.org uses and in many ways CivicSpace is a descendant of.
My feed isn't showing. What's up?
The feed parser this site uses is fussy and won't parse a file if there is the slightest format error in it. To see if your feed has a format errors use the Feed Validator.
Why are updates of my headlines at Philly Future every hour?
Philly Future needs to be polite and not send too much traffic to servers hosting individual blog feeds. I know you will find sites you want to read up-to-the-minute. To do so, you can go to those sites and bookmark them, or better yet, get a RSS News Reader and subscribe using the "subscribe" links listed with each site.
So, what are blogs anyway?
You can read about blogs here.
And what are feeds?
You can read about feeds here.
Can I get a list of all the bloggers you aggregate and are in your blogroll?
Sure you can. And we make it easy for you to add them to yours.
When I submit a story to Philly Future, where does it go?
To your own Philly Future archive and blog. To find it easily, be logged in and click "my blog" in your personalized navigation menu. This is a bookmarkable URL that you can share with others. You get a RSS feed to along with the blog (look for the xml icon).
Additionally, you can click underneath any post where it says "(username)'s blog" to find any other user's personal Philly Future blog.
If you are posting to a comments thread, your comment will show immediately in that conversation.
Selected stories, as chosen by our volunteer team, will be promoted to the Philly Future home page for larger visibility to the community.
What should I write on my Philly Future blog?
Anything you want! Share your personal diary. The trials and tribulations of the kind of work you do. Write about politics or sports. Write about your favorite video games. Whatever you want! Of course, if we detect someone is using this site to transmit illegal or inappropriate material, we will remove those posts and shut down that blog.
If you have your own blog, you might wonder what the benefit is of posting to Philly Future. After all, you don't need to join to add your blog and it is being aggregated already. Posting to Philly Future will give you an important channel to write stories that are seen by other bloggers in this region. Link to other blogs that you think the community should know about. Highlight your own work and write stories that link back to your own blog. Having an additional outlet is always a good thing and who knows what can happen when your posts are visited by the regional blogger community at large?
What's the downsides of using Philly Future as my primary blog?
Philly Future can never provide you with a blogging solution that's as flexible as what you can get when you host with a dedicated blogging service or install and maintain blogging software yourself.
What does "Urbi et Orbi" mean?
It's Latin and means "for the city and for the world". There is no better phrase to describe the purpose of Philly Future.
More information...
Find great Philadelphia related discussion at PhillyBlog.com
Find more Philadelphia related webloggers at eatonweb.
Find more Philadelphia related webloggers on the PhillyBlog webring.
Compliments to the creators and contributors of RSS and Atom. This site would not have been possible without their efforts.
Technology behind this is provided by CivicSpace, and a little elbow grease.
