A so-called “dream team” of bloggers and industry staples have come together to create yet another tech and niche-related blog network- with one catch.  The founders have bypassed all available publishing platforms- and instead opted to build their own.  The result looks to be the ultimate CMS in terms of blogging software for larger networks.

The networks first site; Obsessable, launched this week as a sort of tech-industry aggregator- featuring not only news and reviews, but also columns and related  news links to other tech sites and sources.  The network is anchored by a team of leading bloggers from the early days of AOL-acquired Weblogs Inc. who have come together once again to not only build their ideal blogging software, but to nurture a new network of blogs to challenge top sites in personal electronics, eco-awareness and other niches yet to be announced, according to Read Write Web. 

Leading the company is Brian Alvey, co-founder of Weblogs, Inc., and also features the likes of former Engadget contributor Barb Dybwad as well as Weblogs COO Judith Meskill.  Long story short- the Crowd Fusion team consists only of people who know the blogging industry inside and out, as well as how to find the best writers and editors to keep it running.  Weblogs, Inc. is undisputedly one of the most influential blogging companies of our time, and the leaders have taken the knowledge with them in creating Crowd Fusion and the subsequent publishing platform that’s the heart and soul of the company.

The blogging platform was built by CEO Brian Alvey and CTO Craig Wood.  Alvey created the BlogSmith publishing platform that still powers some of the largest blogs around such as Engadget, TMZ, Autoblog, and Joystiq.  Some built-in features of the platform include a central RSS reader for writers to get news from, as well as the ability to push related links from other blogs out onto the published site automatically.  So far, Obsessable has stated that they’ve aggregated around 1,000 “topical links” from around the web each day. 

Another notable feature of the publishing platform is the ability to allow for the management of multiple responsibilities for posts.  You can define roles for things like finding and sizing images, copy editing, inline advertising, etc., and delegate each responsibility to a different team member to improve flow.  While there was no mention of the availability of the platform to the public, it will no doubt make its way to the market in one form or another.  At least I hope it will, as it truly does look impressive from a blogging point of view.

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Entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm under Blogosphere.

Read more entries by Justin Montgomery.
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