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This is a guest post from Jason of Jason Boom dot com.There's been a lot of hubbub recently about the new BlogCatalog interface. BlogCatalog incorporated many social media sites into the dashboard's Community section to help sites receive exposure. For those wondering what BlogCatalog does for your blog, I'll give a quick rundown.
- Personal Profile, including an avatar that displays on sites running the BlogCatalog reader widget
- Neighborhoods for each blog you submit
- Ability to add friends
- Ability to communicate quickly with your neighborhood
- News Feeds of social media activity
- Discussions
At its core, BlogCatalog is a directory of blogs. They expanded on the commonplace form to include many social media style features. You can add friends, join neighborhoods, read RSS feeds, and message contacts effortlessly. This adds to the appeal of BlogCatalog as opposed to standard directories.
Neighborhoods
A neighborhood for your blog represents your site's footprint inside the BlogCatalog community. When visitors find your site through the network, they can join your neighborhood. Inside your neighborhood page, they can read your recent posts, view other members, and post comment/reviews about your blog.
Those who join the neighborhood would rightfully be seen as fans of the site. While you can join a neighborhood, many users add bloggers as friends instead. A neighborhood filled with members appeals to users the same as high RSS subscriber numbers. I equate this to peer pressure. If five hundred others are doing it, then I should be too.
The benefit of the neighborhoods still eludes me. I know they showcase the sites you adulate, but for me it seems somewhat redundant. I'm already adding the site owner as a contact/friend, so why would I join their neighborhood? Adding bloggers as friends seems much more productive.
My Communities
A plethora of social media sites, including popular destinations like Digg, StumbleUpon, MyBlogLog, Reddit, Technorati, Facebook, and Sphinn can be tapped for more exposure. In your community section, you give your username information for these social media sites, and BlogCatalog imports all your activity into your profile. The next person to run across your BlogCatalog profile will see what you recently Dugg, Sphunn, and Twittered.
Your visitors view your most recent Diggs, Sphinns and other social media happenings in an RSS feed. This litany of current social media activity harnesses a valuable resource -- your friends' attention. By showing everyone what you just Stumbled, you're encouraging them to also Stumble those articles. If your friends take action and give the content a thumbs up, then your Stumble vote should become more influential in the community. This is just one subtle benefit of showing your social media activity.
News Feed Widget
The BlogCatalog team announced on Sunday evening, via email, that they have created a News Feed Widget. The widget can be placed anywhere on your site and it shows visitors your recent activity on all the aforementioned social media sites.
A visitor to your site can now connect to you on many different levels. They can read your content, and then follow your activity on all the various social media sites. This virtual trail can be good for some sites and not so good for others.
If nothing else, it forces us to always be aware of what we endorse. Are we a weight loss blog stumbling a site promoting unhealthy lifestyles? Do we align ourselves with Democrats on our blog then Digg a McCain lovefest article?
Of course, many users would not have these problems, but it is something to consider. Does the benefit outweigh the negatives? Can we grow our readership and our credibility as a source through these mediums?
Does BlogCatalog Bring Traffic?
To receive substantial traffic, you must be an active member of the BlogCatalog site. It's also a good strategy to join active neighborhoods in your niche, participate in discussions in those neighborhoods, and leave reviews for the blogs you enjoy. All this brings in traffic.
The broadcast feature is popular among bloggers. A broadcast enables you to release a message to all your friends. I've seen many of my BlogCatalog friends use this to encourage visits to their site, request diggs of a post, market a contest, and invite friends to new social media sites. I've also seen it become spam. Broadcasting stellar posts on your own site should lead to more quality visits. I usually ignore spam users and their content. There is a fine line between being annoying and being informative.
Conclusion
Overall I think BlogCatalog is worth the time and effort. We can grow our readership through active participation, and also find some new sites for our feed reader. The recent additions of social media surveillance may benefit some site owners, while others may enjoy the simple interaction of placing reviews for the blogs they read. The site has a lot of potential for expanding your reader base and for communicating with a wider audience.
What do you think?
How does BlogCatalog compare to other networking sites?
How active are you in the BlogCatalog community?
If you're not using BlogCatalog much at the moment, will this article encourage you to dig deeper into the site?
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Tags: blogcatalog, blog network, communities, social media, neighborhoods, bloggers, friends, social media networks
Posted by Jason Boom on March 10, 2008 16:51 / Edited: March 10, 2008 20:05
Comments
I like your point about the News Feed Widget making it important to be extra-aware of online social activities. As the inter-feeding and OpenID concepts spread, this is probably going to be a significant issue. On the positive side, being aware of inconsistencies in what a blogger endorses is potentially a way to spot quality blogs versus get-rich-quick blogs: Cream will rise, no doubt, and a strong thematic feed stream could help.
Thanks, Antony. I'm glad you enjoyed the article. I'm undecided on the news feed widget. I might give it a shot, but I also don't see a huge benefit in it. Maybe I'll use it for a few weeks though, just to see how it goes.
I think you're right RJ. This could reveal those impostors and greedy folks. It would shadow their character in a way. I may just have to write about that. What do your Diggs say about you, etc.?
There's not enough time in the day for all social media sites, so I tend to try most then weed out the least appealing. With that said, I've stayed active in BlogCatalog and it's served me well. Great overview.
This is the third or fourth blog I have found today saying nice things about BlogCatalog. I joined these guys quite a while ago but I have to admit that I have not been very active there the last while (I did find that I was receiving far too much spam from the members at the time). It sounds as if I might be dipping out. I think it is time I rethink my attitude concerning these guys.
I tried BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog when they were new. Stuck with them about a year. But I great really fed up with friend requests from people I don't know. After awhile I was getting flooded with them and most of them had not even bothered to at least look at my site first. I like Bumpzee for now. It lets you build and join communities too. Yet it hasn't been taken over by insta friends yet. I also love Flickr for the communities/ groups too. The photos too, but that wasn't what this post was about.
My Alexa traffic stats went way up after joining blogcatalog. I enjoy the site, but I too don't care for the insta friends and the spam. I usually only join in my niche. Jason, great article. I think it does pay to join, just be choosy when accepting friends.
Jason, thanks for writing an excellent post about blogcatalog. A common issue that member's do experience is receiving requests for friends, and notifications when someone joins their community. In your BlogCatalog account settings there is a section that member's can turn on or off all Notification messages. Many members like receiving Notifications. My preference is to have most of the notifications off. So for anyone that has felt they were being spammed, it is more than likely not spam but friend requests, and shoutbox messages that can be turned off under Notifcations in in your BlogCatalog Account settings.
Jason, I think you did a great job of this post. I haven't written a post about BlogCatalog because I haven't used it enough to know it well, so it made sense to ask someone who could do a better job of it. I'm very glad I asked you!
And thanks to everyone for the comments. :)
Jason, great overview. Thank you. If you try out the News Feed widget I'd love to hear your feedback.