Community genealogy blogs

I was scrolling through Chris Dunham's Genealogy blog directory at http://blogfinder.genealogue.com and saw the "Searching for our Ancestors Journal" blog at http://community.livejournal.com/genealogy/.

It appears to be a group blog with two leaders and over 400 "members" who can contribute. The system works with a member posting something, usually asking for help or suggestions, and different members provide the help or advice or whatever. It seems to work well - every post has a number of comments, many of them very helpful.

That is what I experienced a long time ago (like in 1993) on Prodigy (and I know others who experienced it on CompuServe and AOL as well) - a helpful community with common interests. Over time, you tend to become friends and share your genealogy interests with the helpful people on the forum (or blog in this case).

Now think about how you could use something like this in your local genealogy society. Your leaders could announce programs or highlight activities, and your members could share success stories, ask for help with a research problem, etc.

There are other possibilities - special interest groups for certain counties or states or types of resources.

While this group blog is something like a message board or email mailing list, I think it becomes more personal if you participate in it. The ability to post images is a big plus, I think. You are a member of it, you feel ownership and belonging in it. It seems much more dynamic than mailing lists or message boards. I'll bet that many of the people participating are relatively young - under 40.

Your thoughts and comments? Any experiences with group blogs?