Aussie Bloggers

This is an interview with Josh Sharp of techCollective and Josh Sharp - web application development blog. techCollective is Josh’s new project, an aggregation site for Australia’s brightest and best Web 2.0/social computing blogs.

Andrew: Josh, what are you aiming to achieve with techCollective? What’s the main selling point, the message you’re trying to get out there?

Josh: I really feel that the Australian web industry is under-represented as a whole. You have to look hard to get a good feel for a local perspective on startups, technologies, and the like. And that’s the one thing I’d really like to change. My main aim is to bring the focus back to the local industry – by giving Australian bloggers a voice, and by giving interested readers a chance to find content they may have otherwise missed. There are all these authoritative, local voices coming from people who have launched startups, or are changing how the web works at some fundamental level, or just have brilliant ideas. And it’s very hard to hear them over the likes of big international and US-based content like http://techcrunch.com. It’s a real shame.

So my aim is to at least get people aware of these bloggers, so even if they just bookmark the site and browse it every so often, they’re still going to get more of a local perspective on things.

Andrew: Where do you see techCollective going? Is there a limit to the number of blogs you can aggregate with it in the current one-page format?

Josh: You’re right, there is. When I came up with the idea I didn’t have any long term plans aside from raising awareness about the local industry. But I’m open to ideas, and I’d love to grow the site over time. Ultimately I think it could become a portal to local tech content, with further niche content available, forums, the works. But I’ve only just launched!

Andrew: So are you thinking of allowing user-generated content, like tagging of individual stories? What about individualised RSS feeds or some other sort of personalisation?

Josh: I think ultimately that growing and evolving techCollective will be a community process – I’d love if it expanded to include a forum, or some other form of user interaction. Blogging is unique in that it’s turned reporting and journalism into a two way conversation, and I’d like to take advantage of that. User-submitted content is a good idea, and if there proves to be an enthusiastic community waiting, I think that’s something I’d love to turn my attention to. But those sort of extras will come with time. At the moment I’m keeping it simple, and focussing on promoting local bloggers.

Andrew: Finally, if anyone knows someone that should be on techCollective, how do they get in touch with you?

Josh: Easy – just head over to my contact page, and tell me about your blog.

Andrew: Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, Josh, and all the best in the future.

Josh: Thanks Andrew.