Where To Find News And Topics To Blog About

Blog reader Jeremy recently wrote to me with a couple of blogging questions. One of them was asking how can someone find a lot of news and info right when it’s been announced to blog about. I decided a blog post would suffice as an acceptable response to help him out (and hopefully a few others) with finding things to blog about.

If I’m stuck on ideas, I generally head to a social news site, or other similar blogs for ideas and inspiration. I like to come up with creative content myself, but sometimes it can be refreshing to blog about current news in my (your) industry. Here are four ways to find fresh content ideas.

Digg

Digg is what I would label as the most active site on the internet. It’s the best resource to find any type of news, video, picture, or podcast which is currently popular in it’s respective section. If you blog about the news and current topics in the spotlight, Digg is the best place to go for up to the minute reports, news, and announcements.

Other Blogs

I have around 75 blogs in my RSS reader of choice (NewsFire) which get updated every hour. This keeps a stream of content coming through and let’s see see all of my favourite blogs latest content from one simple location. When I’m going through reading in the RSS reader, I have a notebook handy and I take notes of interesting topics I see that I could expand my views on and possibly create a blog post from.

Technorati

Technorati latest feature Where’s the Fire? (WTF) are short blurbs that explain the buzz around people, things, or events—why the hot topics are so hot—and you can vote the best ones to the top. These can be helpful for bloggers as it gives you another option to keep tab on the most popular things on the web. It’s a handy source if you are running low on ideas.

Blank Paper

Last but not least, sit down with a blank notepad and come up with some original ideas. Sure, it might require time and inspiration - but your most popular blog posts will always be ones you’ve come up with solely by yourself.

Comments

  1. #1

    alej744

    I wish I had a blog :/

  2. #2

    Indraneel → indraneel.thepurohits.net

    I’m starting fresh (starting this week, sorta).
    I took your advice and I now write everything on paper. I have a ton of ideas for blog posts.

    Digg is not very helpful, but it gives good general ideas.
    My feeds are helpful
    I have yet to use technorati’s WTF.

    I’m currently redesigning my blog so that’ll take the bulk of my time.

  3. #3

    Tom → www.klavr.net

    I’ve been looking for inspiration for literally 5 weeks or so. I really need some, where do you find yours?

  4. #4

    Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com

    I’ve been looking for inspiration for literally 5 weeks or so. I really need some, where do you find yours?

    Where do I find inspiration? I’ve been planning to blog about this for a while, check back later this week for my opinion.

  5. #5

    enterthepizza

    i am not advertising but i find it easier blogging with flock. Maybe it’s all in my head? It has a built in rss feeder which you can organize and fill with all the interesting sites you visit(reddit, del.icio.us, bbc, doggdot, and various blogs including glennwolsey). i just scroll around in the rss feeder till i find something interesting. you can also connect flock with your blog. it has of course downsides but hey it works for me ;)

  6. #6

    Jeremy (Kiro/tstitch) → tstitch.wordpress.com

    Thank You Very Much! This means a lot! I usually use dig or a few blogs but a lot of my stuff comes from the blank piece of paper. Thanks again!

  7. #7

    Paul Stamatiou → paulstamatiou.com

    I checkout techmeme daily but I don’t often blog about what’s hot on it.. most of it is random alist blogger babble with no real content.

  8. #8

    Glenn Wolsey → www.glennwolsey.com

    I checkout techmeme daily but I don’t often blog about what’s hot on it.. most of it is random alist blogger babble with no real content.

    That is something I’ve begun to hate. Blogger start with great content, then as they grow more popular the content turns from original into link posts, they think they can get away with it. It’s certainly not my philosophy, I despise link posts. If you are making a post, make it worthy for your audience to check it out.

  9. #9

    Dan

    I use newsmap for news, mainly because I love the interface.

    http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm

  10. #10

    TagMan → www.apogee-web-consulting.com/tagman/tagmuse.php

    Hi Glenn. I like your “Blank Paper” suggestion. Nice. I’ve been thinking about using Technorati data to help come up with blogging ideas. Try TagMuse, a Technorati mashup that grabs the popular searches, highlights those with fewer tags, finds related tags, and builds tags in rel-tag microformat to cut-and-paste into a blog post. Not sure if it’s going to be a useful tool or not. Always fun to experiment, though. If it doesn’t work, I have plenty of paper. ;-)

  11. #11

    AsceticMonk → www.asceticmonk.com

    Thank you for sharing! I am sure I can use some of your tips in my own blogging.

  12. #12

    wphj → www.wphj.wordpress.com

    My posts always seem to come to me right as I’m falling asleep. Unfortunately, this means I forget a lot of them until a few days later. Hopefully, when inspiration strikes I’m near my MacBook. I pop open wordpress and save a draft with just the title. Then when I’m going to do a post I just pick a title that appeals to me and get writing.

  13. #13

    Dennis Coughlin → www.cherrystreet.co.uk

    I find that a large portion of my posts come conversations with clients or co-workers. Working in web design, you’ll find that you’re answering questions for non-technical people all the time - and most of these answers are perfect for a blog post.

    Great site by the way Glenn!

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  15. #15

    Martha → as-the-boomers-age.blogspot.com

    Visit Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends where every day 100 of the hottest trends are listed.

  16. #16

    AddyX → www.addyx.wordpress.com

    Hell yeah Love the post, I kno this comment was left a little late but something had to be said by me!!

  17. #17

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  19. #19

    Gaje master → gajemaster.com

    Great tips and thanks for the advice. I have trouble sometimes and I have been writing for a while now.

  20. #20

    Grant → www.grantmc.co.uk

    Great article, I generally dont search places like digg or even twitter for things to blog about, although it has been knowing to happened if i feel uninspired and need to make a post.

    But one you didn’t mention that i would say i watch over for latest news is twitter.

  21. #21

    George → www.bestmediablog.com

    I’m glad you enjoyed reading the article. The link love is also much appreciated

  22. #22

    Planet Apex → planetapex.blogspot.com

    This is a very good list. But I think doing even one of them will be enough. You must ad site hopping too. Just reading your favorites is not enough. The last few days I’ve been through many sites and I’ve seen so much new interesting thing I don’t know what to blog out. lol a kind of anticlimax to the topic here.

  23. #23

    soulleyhoogs → technorati.com/blogs/tom-merryman644ltt.blogspot.com

    She had lost most of her clearance by now, and secretively fell over delectible times.

  24. #24

    Matt → www.thisguysvoice.com

    I used to be big into RSS, really big. But at the end of the day when I could sit down and read the blogs, I would end up having so many posts to sift through that it could easily take me an hour or so to read all of them. So, I quit. Now I mainly stick with the blank sheet of paper course or the review course. I am big into reviewing the latest piece of software I’ve picked up or offering some hints from my personal computing experiences. I also like reading about new software and picking up a demo to try out and review for myself. The news is a good start, but you gotta have some personal balance in order to maintain readership and offer something to the folks that are taking time to read your blog. My view, of course.

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