Richmond Brainstorm

I realize that if we have anything in common when it comes to what we all do online, it has to be Facebook.

It has become so popular that it seems everyone you talk to has an account and hangs out there.  But what I'm also realizing is it has become a lot like AOL used to be:  a place where people go and stay for the most part, without venturing out of Facebook to other sites on the web.

One of the problems for locals has been there wasn't much else to do to meet up with people in our area and find out what's going on.

Many have complained about Waynet.org being the only source of information in the Wayne County area.  (And that it needs to be better funded, among other things.)

But the web is changing and there are other bloggers and websites from our area working hard to bring local flavor and news to the web where we can all benefit.

The problem comes when such site owners cannot get people to leave Facebook, Twitter or other social sites to come to the sites they work so hard on.  Eventually those sites are abandoned and inevitably someone complains about there being "nothing to do online beyond Facebook to find local people and information."

It's a vicious cycle which can be remedied by seeking out and supporting local bloggers and other local community websites with your visits.  The more encouragement we give locals, the more they are likely to keep up their sites and make them better for us.

For our part, we've started a local site directory and post as much as possible about Indiana and Wayne County sites when we find new ones.

We'd like to shed light on more sites in the Wayne County area, so if anyone has a site not linked above, please feel free to submit it.

And, if you are a Facebook junky, get off that site for a bit and support the sites in our area that are answering everyone's call for more local sites, by locals for locals.