Why it’s in the Showcase: Blogband is one of the FCC’s major forays into blogging and social media.

Mitchell Baker is the Chair of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet.

Why it’s in the Showcase: As a highly notable person within the Mozilla Foundation (the organization behind the Firefox web browser), Mitchell’s well-designed blog is certainly notable.

GigaOM Pro is a WordPress/BuddyPress-powered premium research membership site, focused on four initial verticals: Mobile, Green IT, Infrastructure, and the Connected Consumer. A network of independent analysts provide in-depth research papers and research notes, which subscribers can view on the site or download as PDF documents.

Why it’s in the Showcase: According to developer Mark Jaquith, “the Write screen for Curated Links looks nothing like the Write screen for Weekly Updates or Research Briefs.” Jaquith also commented on how the installation makes heavy use of WordPress’ category system and custom WP_Query objects and loops.

Why it’s in the Showcase: AMD use of WordPress MU to power a variety of employee written blogs is a great example of a major company using blogging to reach out to its customers and developer community.

BLogitech contains Insights from Logitech employees into the company’s products, technologies and the digital lifestyle.

Why it’s in the Showcase: Logitech is a major technology company and its decision to use WordPress to power its growing corporate blog is a significant one.

TorrentFreak is a weblog dedicated to bringing the latest news about BitTorrent and everything that is closely related to this popular filesharing protocol. We are not a news aggregator, but focus on unique and fresh stories. TorrentFreak is where news and filesharing collide. We try to be the source of all the latest breaking news in the p2p world.

Why it’s in the Showcase: TorrentFreak is a well-known and popular blog that has been featured on news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the BBC, the Guardian and the LA Times.

PlatinumGames Inc. is an independent entertainment developer based in Osaka, Japan, dedicated to making high quality, next generation games for a variety of hardware platforms. Loaded with some of the gaming industry’s most talented creators, PlatinumGames seeks to break the mold of a sequel driven industry by creating innovative, original IP that exceed users’ expectations.

Why it’s in the Showcase: PlatinumGames’ innovative website utilizes the new WordPress.com HD video solution and age age verification features. Everything on the site is powered by and managed with WordPress including pages, posts, sidebars, and other site features.

Why it’s in the Showcase: HowStuffWorks is a popular website with an appropriate name – the content on the site explains how things work. The Blogs at HowStuffWorks are a frequently updated extension of the site’s main content.

Chris Pirillo is a prolific blogger, YouTube partner, magazine columnist, conference producer, community consultant, and Tech Expert for CNN.com. He is probably best known as the founder of the blog network Lockergnome.

Why it’s in the Showcase: Chris Pirillo’s personal site serves as the center of his prolific online presence.

The official web site and blog of Ryan Block, co-founder of consumer electronics site gdgt and the current editor-at-large of Engadget, a web magazine and network of sites focused on coverage of consumer electronics and technology.