Yes, yes, I know I haven’t written much here lately, but my reading and blogging time is mostly getting happily occupied with development on ReportingOn, which has been open for a week now in a public beta.
The most noticeable thing about ReportingOn so far is the strong Spanish- and Portugeuse-speaking turnout. Seriously, North America, where are y’all at?
The awesomeness that is the Spanish-speaking media blogosphere has been kind to me so far, though. Yesterday, Pablo Mancini, who works at the beautiful El Comercio in Peru, interviewed me by e-mail.
I’ve posted the English version at IdeaLab. Check it out:
Q: It seems there are quite a few non-US journalists, several of them from South America, among the first 100-odd users. Had you counted on so many non-Americans joining so fast?
A: The biggest surprise of the first week, which you and your colleagues are the evidence of, is the huge turnout from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking journalists. I’m scrambling to come up with an intelligent way to deal with the different languages on the site without creating too many divisions between users based on their location. As a researcher, it’s really exciting to me because it’s what we might call an “unintended use” of the site, and as a developer, it’s exciting to have a sudden need to push something up the feature queue in a hurry.
So, tell a journalist or blogger with a beat about ReportingOn, and I’ll keep working on adding features like comments, better profile pages, and an assortment of other things on my list.