Universal Hub

Local blog enthusiasts prepare yourselves. There has been a revolution in ways of finding local Boston blogs and it definitely does not include a Google search. Adam Gaffin, co-founder of Boston blog database, Universal Hub, tells us how it all started.

Gaffin has a full-time day job, but at night he becomes the legendary blogger of Universal Hub, who soars through Internet domains until he finds local boston blogs to add to the Hub's collections. He links those local blogs to his site as a way to bring those blog readers to his site, and also a way for him to direct traffic to the blogs he posts.

Universal Hub does something that not many others have tried by congregating thousands of local blogs and putting them all in one place. Although I would imagine the task to be somewhat tedious for Gaffin, he is quite the blogging hobbyist and has made his blog a business.

Universal Hub does not link to just any Boston blog, but to ones that are relevant and news-worthy. Gaffin emphasized his desire to make the Hub a news gathering portal, where local news that would never have made the Boston Globe would make a popular post on his site. He especially likes stories about the "T" because it is one of the mosst common tools that Bostonians use day-in and day-out, which is why one should expect to see a "T" blog when browsing the Hub. To illustrate my example, the newest blog link on the Hub at this second is called "Sure, it's no T Radio - it's worse," and discusses a new PA system that the MBTA brought forth in North Station. It's stories like this that hold relevance in a Bostonian's mind and stories like this that one would never encounter in the Globe.

I think the Universal Hub is an extraordinary tool to finding local blogs, it offers a unique Web service that I have not seen in any other cities, and for that alone I think it's a tremendous and creative effort. I think it's inevitable for this platform to spread to other cities across the United States taking the example that Gaffin offers with the one and only Universal Hub.