Review of Energy Roundup

The Energy Roundup blog on Wall Street Journal online “collects and analyzes” the day’s energy news from sources around the world. Editors and writers from WSJ.com contribute to the blog. The blogs are written on market days and in the week from Tuesday, January 15 through Tuesday, January 22 two days had three posts, two days had only one post, and I used only the first morning post of today. There are no posts on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays (I am assuming this because there was not a post on Monday, January 21).

The blog seems to be for Americans who have somewhat of a concern about energy and/or environmental issues who want an overview of the latest discussions, study findings, and actions concerning energy topics such as alternative energy sources and some analysis of how they may affect the environment, the economy, politics, nations around the world, and their lives. The blog provides a sort of one-stop-shop for people who do not read many news sources, but who want to be informed.

The blog is informative because it talks about what energy issues are discussed in the day’s newspapers, new studies, and by people who are influential in energy decisions such as, oil promoters, alternative energy promoters, politicians, and nations. The blog may have appeal and draw a repeat audience because it is about what is in that day’s newspapers and online content. Some topics over the last week were peak oil, global warming, the promises (or lack thereof) of alternative energies, European energy strategies, Bush’s efforts in Saudi Arabia, and the carbon market.

The intention of the blog seems to be to question “conventional wisdom” and to bring up points that make the reader rethink one side of a story, stance, or some expectations. Many of the posts are not the most positive or optimistic about the state of the energy sources and strategy and about the promises of new energy sources.

The Energy Newstand posts focus on what the day’s newspapers and news sources are reporting about a current issue and what they can mean together. The other posts include new research findings, comments on speeches and other current actions concerning energy, as well as information from newspaper and other sources.

The Energy Newstand posts are accompanied by a small graphic of a newspaper on a doormat. One post was accompanied by a chart and another included a picture of a man whose comments were the subject of the post. Some of the other pictures had captions and were more for humor and to add to the point of the post. Each post has one image.

The posts include hyperlinks to articles on websites such as The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, CNNMoney.com, The New York Times, National Review Online, other blogs, research study PDFs, meeting minutes, energy organization websites, and environmentalist websites. It referenced the WSJ the most. I had trouble with some of the hyperlinks-one of them was not able to be displayed and the other directed me to the page that I was on. I did not like that the hyperlinks would disappear once I had clicked on them.

At the end of each post there is an option to view and make comments and to email and share the post. There are also links to view related content and read more about the topics on WSJ.com.

The writing style of the blog is less than formal; though it is still not difficult to read or much different than the writing in the Wall Street Journal. I found one typographical error.

Overall the blog is interesting, informative, and well put together.