For the past six or seven years (I’ve honestly lost count) we’ve been running the “Minnesota Organization of Bloggers”, the first blogging social organization in Minnesota, and still both the only non-partisan and the only genuinely fun one.

Now, that’s been a lot of fun.  I’ve met a lot of really great bloggers – conservatives, liberals (we don’t bite!), non-political, and every other kind you can imagine – and just plain really great people.

One thing we have not met is “nearly enough out-state Minnesota bloggers”.

It’s not for lack of some effort.  Back in 2005 or 2006 the MOB did a party at the Granite City in Saint Cloud where, I’m told, I sat at a laptop and set up the original incarnation of Gary Gross’ “Let Freedom Ring” blog, which has since become one of the essential conservative blogs in Minnesota.

But I’ll cop to it; the MOB is run by metro-area guys, and it’s mostly a metro-area group.

Aaron Brown at Minnesota Brown (Aside:  I am so glad that he beat Ryan Rhodes and Learned Foot to that title), reprinted at MinnPost, notes the same thing:

I’m biased, but it’s important for people outside the population centers of this country to get involved on the internet and demand attention for issues important to our communities. So much of the internet is similar people of similar opinions and lifestyles talking to each other.

I notice that less among conservative bloggers – but there is a definite “major city” bulge in the blogging demographic.  Perhaps it’s because in smaller towns, you think that on the off-chance anyone is interested in your opinion (that’s the small-town North Dakota guy talking, there), you run into them every day anyway, so why actually write and publish it?  I dunno, it’s a theory.

Even perhaps the ultimate small-market politics blog – Rob Port’s excellent Say Anything, which focuses on North Dakota politics – is a major-city blog, by NoDak standards; Rob’s in Minot, which is to North Dakota as Rochester is to Minnesota.

But I’m with Brown on this next bit:

Whether it’s a good liberal blog [sic] like Bluestem Prairie or a conservative one like Small City Mayor, a Range-based creative outlet like Mesabi Misadventures or a niche blog like my friend C.O.’s Alaska-based What’s in the Shop, it’s important that people know that there’s a world outside of the 494/694 box where life is different, some would say better.

OK, I would say better. But that’s just me.

It is important.  And I’ll just point out that my never-ending quest to find more non-metro bloggers continues as well.

If you’re a reader anywhere, but especially in outstate MN, and you have a blog (or have an urge to get into the game), let me know.