"Local blog garners statewide recognition; Palousitics.com is named state's top influential political blog for week of Aug. 26"

Some nice coverage on Palousitics being recognized as the most infuential political blog in Washington for this week from today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Tom Forbes started Palousitics.com in 2005 as a way to vent his political frustrations.

It has since grown into much more.

Forbes' creation was recognized Sunday by BlogNetNews.com as the No. 1 influential political blog in Washington for the week of Aug. 26.

A blog is a personal log of thoughts published on a Web site. The tone of the writing usually reflects the personality of the author. In the case of Palousitics, the logs generally reflect a conservative viewpoint on local issues by contributing writers from throughout Pullman and Whitman County.

Forbes, who writes local political commentary almost daily on the blog, was notified of the honor via e-mail.

"It's fun," he said. "We're just enjoying the moment."

BlogNetNews, which began ranking blogs June 16, publishes each state's top 20 blogs on a weekly basis. Ranked second this week in Washington is democracyforvancouver.org, a progressive blog for residents of southwest Washington, and in third place is nwrepublican.blogspot.com.

David Mastio, editor of BlogNetNews, wrote in an e-mail Monday that the ratings are tallied based on blog traffic, links to a site on other important blogs, the number of reader comments, and how often BlogNetNews readers access a blog and how they rate it.

Mastio wrote that Palousitics may be small, but it warrants recognition.

"The writers there post frequently with tough commentary," Mastio wrote. "Blog readers like active sites with a strong voice. Palousitics also specializes in local issues which allows them to stand out in a crowd where too many people are talking about the same national subjects. Palousitics also takes advantage of basic Internet tools such as video linking in order to give readers more than just options."

Issues are blogged nearly every day by any of Palousitic's 16 contributing writers, Forbes said. Many posts have been supportive of Wal-Mart locating in Pullman, and other economic development issues, such as growth in the Pullman-Moscow corridor.

Forbes said he's also proud of his work mentoring the Washington State University College Republicans on the strength of blogs and watching the group receive national recognition on the issue of immigration.

Local and state elections also are a hot topic of discussion, and Forbes said he'd like to think the blog had something to do with the 2005 city and 2006 county election results.

"It's going to be an exciting election year next year. We'll be gearing up for that," he said.

Forbes said he's sure "there are many other blogs in Washington that have more visitors than we do," especially in the Seattle area, but adds the ranking is quite a compliment.

"For a blog that concentrates mostly on stuff that happens in Pullman, that's pretty good," he said.

Forbes said his readers primarily consist of Pullman, Whitman County and Moscow residents, as well as members of the local media and elected officials from the area and around the state.

Readers of the blog often can be tracked by domain name, Forbes said, adding that 13 percent of his site's hits come from wsu.edu and include Washington State University students, faculty and administrators.

"We are reaching people in the community and some influential people in the community. It's always a surprise," he said. "It just shows that we're reaching maturity as a blog."

Mastio agreed.

"I also wouldn't underestimate the longevity of that blog," he wrote. "Going back to 2005 makes them a greybeard in the Internet world. The vast majority of blogs fold in the first six months, long before they've had a chance to develop many loyal readers and before most people have ever heard of them. Palousitics has been going steady for close to 2000 posts, that's impressive."

Thanks to Hillary Hamm for a nice write-up. But most of all thanks to you all for making it possible.