MyBlogLog ScreenshotYesterday, I installed the MyBlogLog widget on this blog. The response on this blog itself has been overwhelming and after looking into it further on other blogs and how it’s currently being used across the board, I’m quite impressed by the potential of the service offerings. Even though the service is pretty much in its infancy, it is doing quite well right now, and I expect the popularity to increase into 2007.

So what exactly does the MyBlogLog widget do, and why use it?

MyBlogLog is service whose core resides in little graphical widget that you can customize and put on your site to show you who reads your blog(s). Your blog may already have that personal touch from an author’s perspective, but that graphical designation from a reader’s perspective lets you get to know the kinds of visitors your blog (or another blog) gets. Essentially, it creates a community, and that’s exactly what it is.

Beyond the widget, MyBlogLog is an extensive network of blog readers. You can join “blog readership” communities (such as ours) based on your friends’ habits and you can meet new friends through similar blog community bonds. Furthermore, unlike other social networks, MyBlogLog encourages communication beyond the service, and with a profile that lets you fill out a ton of personal information, including LinkedIn URL, MySpace ID, Friendster ID, or Facebook name, you’re bound to find someone who shares one (or many) additional social networks with you.

MyBlogLog’s popularity, of course, has a lot to do with its widget that links back to its site. Consequently, they have a lot of results, which is pretty darn good for a site that launched its community features in May of this year. This goes to show that if you offer a great tool with link back to your site, your traffic will soar as the tool’s popularity increases.

From using the service myself, I noticed one small “bug” in the service that really isn’t a bug after all, and I wanted to help clear up some misconceptions since the discussion still is on the confused side.

Awhile ago, I posted a comment on MarketingPilgrim, and my head didn’t show up:

MarketingPilgrim Comments Missing My Head

Now I know we look like we could be the same person because we both post on this blog, but that simply wasn’t the case. Initially, it appeared that MyBlogLog didn’t support multiple authors, and when I tried to claim that I also authored this blog, it said that I couldn’t because another author (Chris) already did.

After doing some digging, the very helpful MyBlogLog support told me that Chris would have to click on the “Add an Author” link on the 10e20 community page. Now I have a unique head again.

All in all, I have been enjoying MyBlogLog and recommend that all blog authors do sign up to monitor their blogs too. This social blogging network is proving to be a necessity in the blogosphere.

(Is it any surprise that Yahoo, which is trying to broaden its social media outreach, is in possible acquisition discussions with MyBlogLog?)


Posted by Tamar Weinberg at 1:10 pm
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