The Crunchable.net/work's statement of purpose and being

What is this?

The Crunchable.net/work is a kind of dynamic communal blogroll. Or maybe a link co-op. Or the mutant offspring of a Webring (remember those?) and Twitter. Above all, it's an experiment.

At its heart, it's a constantly updating list of stories pulled from a variety of blogs and Web sites on all sorts of topics — personal essays, baseball cards, TV, music, and how to bake cookies.

What the listed sites have in common is a commitment to writing creatively and well, along with a shared history: All of the net/work's founding sites are run by current or former writers of Crunchable.net (most of whom also happen to be alums of Washington College in Chestertown, MD).

The Crunchable.net/work connects you with blogs you might never have heard of, writing on subjects you hadn't realized you cared about.

How do I use it?

In addition to checking this Web site (crunchable.net/work) for the latest postings throughout the net/work, you can also use our RSS feed with Firefox, Google Reader or any other RSS reader you use.

You can also get updates via Twitter or Facebook whenever new content goes out over the net/work, or you can embed our widget on your blog to share the net/work's content with your readers.

Where’d this idea come from?

Michael Duck, Crunchable.net's editor guy since late 2005, was musing on the abundance of blogs written by former Crunchable writers. Back when Crunchable started in 2001, many of those writers were doing the same great writing — but at that time, they had been relying on Crunchable to publish their work, because WordPress and Blogger and other services hadn't yet made it so easy for every writer with Internet access to become a blogger.

So the writing hadn't stopped, but it was getting harder and harder to keep track of all the sites these writers were creating. So Duck got the idea of linking all these sites together, helping them reach new audiences and connect with each other.

The idea came to fruition with the invaluable help of Crunchable founder Chris Klimas, who put together most of the programming code that powers this site.

I write a blog, too! Can I join the net/work?

We're considering expanding the net/work to include more sites, but we're still determining exactly how we want to do that. For now, let us know you're interested by sending an e-mail to eds@crunchable.net with "JOIN THE NET/WORK" in the subject line, and Michael Duck or one of Crunchable's other editors will get back to you.

Also, please check out the terms section of our members page, which specifies what member sites are required to do.

By the way, what’s the “beta” part mean?

We're still tweaking parts of the site, as well as the widget and other features. Soon we'll offer more sizes and color schemes for the widget, so you can better match it to the look of your blog; we might eventually make it fully customizable.

We're also trying to make sure this thing functions correctly. Whenever you encounter a problem, please e-mail us at eds@crunchable.net so that we can work on fixing it. (In your note, please mention which Web browser you're using — Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.)

We also welcome your suggestions! Please send those along too.