What is a Blog?

I have no idea anymore. News websites now run on WordPress while Blogs tend to look a lot like news websites these days. Regardless, there are six online destinations that constantly grab my attention. If all else fails: Twitter whales, my Google Reader goes bust and I can’t get any good links out of my friends and connections on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google +, I can always rely on these:

6 Websites That Deserve Your Attention (in alphabetical order):

• AdWeek. Since their recent redesign, AdWeek has been chock full of advertising and marketing goodness. Sure, it’s easy to just grab the RSS feed or wait for someone on Twitter to send you a link to an AdWeek article, but a daily visit to this site will get you up-to-speed in no time at all… and it looks and feels great too!
• CMO.com. Another one of the few websites that I have set as a default tab when I open my Google Chrome browser. CMO.com is called, "digital marketing for CMOs." I’m not sure it would be possible for a description to be more fitting of the things that interest me most. CMO.com is a combination of links from across the Web and original content. There’s always something meaty to bite into.
• Lost At E Minor. Strange and quirky artistic journeys into pop culture. If you’re looking to see something different or trying to spark some level of creativity, there’s no better place than Lost At E Minor. While this should be considered an art Blog, there are countless lessons about Marketing from within their posts. I’m also a huge fan of their e-newsletter (yes, I still subscribe to e-newsletters… quite looking at me that way!).
• The New York Times – Media & Advertising. This is one of those, "I can’t believe all of this information is free" types of pages. While it’s only one web page, it’s links and links to everything you need to know about what’s happening right now when it comes to all media and the advertising happens in and around it. There’s always deep insight and the structure is a real pleasure to peruse.
• Nieman Journalism Lab. From Harvard University‘s Nieman Journalism Lab comes this Blog that is always a treat to read. It’s described as, "an attempt to help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age." Beyond the philosophy and hyperbole you get on other Blogs looking at the new Journalism, you’ll often find reviews of apps and other real-world events that are changing the face of journalism here. And trust me, if it’s changing the face of journalism, it’s also affecting everything we do in the marketing realm as well.
• Sparksheet. Published by Spafax, Sparksheet is my favorite place to learn more about the discourse on content, content marketing and new media. The writing is sharp and original. You can tell that the Editor, Dan Levy, puts a tremendous amount of time and effort into thinking about each article, the flow and how it all comes together. Ultimately, it feels like a magazine… a real magazine, and that’s a treat in a world where most websites are simply links to others or a regurgitation of content we’ve seen somewhere else. I’m constantly surprised that more people don’t know about Sparksheet and how great it is.

Now it’s your turn: what are some of your top picks (and yes, I’d prefer the picks to be ones that aren’t so well-known 😉