Orato.com Makes PC Magazine's Top 100 Web Sites Of 2008!

It may not be an achievement on the level of Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals at the Beijing Summer Olympics, but it’s a big deal around here: PC Magazine has included Orato.com on its list of the Top 100 Web sites of 2008.

It’s gratifying, because while we think Orato.com is one of the best sites of its kind in the world, we need that important third-party validation. Earlier this year, we scored a Webby, which is the Internet’s foremost award – although there was a snarky article in Slate by media critic Jack Shafer complaining that so many people win Webbies, they’re next to worthless, distinction-wise.

I could point out to Jack that seeing Orato.com included in the Webby list as one of the 15 best news sites on the planet is priceless, not worthless, but I’ll save my breath to cool my porridge, as my grandmother used to say, and move on to bask in the glow of the PC Magazine honor, about which there can be no carping. Check it out right here.

Orato.com didn’t enter anything. We were as surprised as anyone by PC Magazine’s list. There is nothing like unsolicited praise, and praise it is indeed:

“One of the better "citizen journalism" sites we've seen, Orato gives readers a chance to break free of the mainstream media by writing the news themselves. There's a good mix of political news and lighter fare, and—surprise!—many of the user-submitted articles are quite compelling.”

Although I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, I’m kind of amused/frustrated by that last remark. I suspect that most of the people who are surprised by the quality of citizen journalism don’t read that much of it…or maybe they just haven’t discovered Orato.com, because there are so many good articles, videos and images on this site that we had trouble getting it down to a Top 50 of 2007, and it doesn’t look as if the task is going to be any easier for 2008. Maybe we’ll have to expand our list to include 100 stories this year.

And now that we’ve started paying consistently for article pitches, it’s brought more good stories to the site. We still don’t pay enough to interest highly competitive freelancers, but we do include professionals among our amateur correspondents. We’ve never made a distinction: a good first-person story is a good first-person story, and we approach everyone with the same consideration and respect – which, I might add, generates consideration and respect in return. I also want to assure you that you will always be able to post your story for free – if it makes it through the banned word filters!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the other sites on PC Magazine’s list, which is full of fascinating discoveries. On the news site page alone, along with Orato.com, there’s the official blog of the United States Supreme Court , Americablog, an ambitious left-leaning political news site, MobLogic.tv, featuring man-on-the-street interviews, townhall.com, which aggregates politically conservative blogs, and something called Truemors, which is a user-generated rumor site. Visit them all!