BlogExplosion
Posted on:: November 24th, 2004
I’m trying out BlogExplosion, a free service designed to build traffic on your site. Click on a button on the site and it sends you to one of its member’s sites. For every two sites you visit, it sends one member to your site. I’m doing it primarily as an experiment in structured random browsing.
This could be a really cool service if it were more heavily international than my first handful of clicks indicates…
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I tried that out for a while. On the bright side, I found two blogs to add to my aggregator, and my aimless surfing drove my visitor stats up. On the less-bright side, most of the random blogs I visited that way were annoying at best and banal at worst, and I expect it’s not a great way for me to accrue regular readers because my subject matter is so specialized. I’m curious to see whether you think BlogExplosion is useful to you.
Along with Rachel, I’m wondering how this will work out. I could care less about the casual visitor. What I think most people are interested in is the repeat readers who are willing to comment and help build discussion on the blog.
There are a couple of improvements for blogs that I would suggest:
1. Blog posts that generate a lot of interest, as indicated by the number of comments or views should not automatically be knocked down by new entries that do not generate as much interest. Keep the blogroll going, of course, but once a certain post reaches a threshold of interest, it should join the ranks of a side column, perhaps, where other popular posts exist.
2. Comments should be searchable. I should be able to aggregate all comments I or someone else has left on a particular blog. Ideally, this should span the entire blogosphere so that I could aggregate all the comments I have left on all blogs. It would be easy, then to see where people go and what they say. This way the audience of the blogosphere would be much more empowered. In essence, I wouldn’t necessarily have to start my own blog to, in effect, have a blog of sorts.
I signed up to take a look, I liked the idea of being shown random(ish) blogs. First one I came across was either using scripture to either condemn or condone homosexuality – I couldn’t really figure out which. The second one told me that Toronto just won the Grey Cup, but forgot to mention what sport that is (Cement mixing?). The third was mostly REM lyrics. Ah well.
I’m not bothered in attracting readers this way either – bandwidth costs, and anyone that keen on cat photos can find their own way ;-)
The reason I personally would like searchable comments is because I’ve spent a lot of time and energy posting to other people’s blogs. Pieces of my writing are floating around out there in the blogosphere, and it occurred to me that it would be nice if some how I could get it all back. Thinking about it some more, I concluded that it would be good for the common weal of the blogosphere because by allowing a particular person’s thoughts to be traceable through the blogosphere, a clearer, more nuanced picture of an individual would emerge than would be possible by just looking at the comments posted to one or two blogs. The blogosphere audience would come alive, so to speak.
By allowing searchable comments the blogger and the audience would be placed on almost equal footing. In fact, it would almost make them one in the same thing: my blog could simply be an aggregation of all that I’ve posted on other people’s blogs. Everyone writing anything would be making their own blog. A blog would be created simply by doing a name search which would, of course lead to myriad other blogs thereby reinforcing the whole blog idea. I think all of this would give people a much greater incentive than they now have to participate in blogging by writing comments. Again, your collected comments would be their own blog. As it is, I’ve noticed that people don’t post that many comments. There are exceptions to this, but as a general rule it holds. By addressing this, the blogosphere becomes twice what it currently is.
http://www.xrnet.cn
http://www.neworldonline.org
http://www.neworldonline.org/map.asp
http://www.neworldonline.org/ourwork.asp
http://www.neworldonline.org/branch-1.asp
Is this basically the return of LinkExchange?
I am trying out the BlogExplosion out of curiosity. So far, I am not sure that those who visit my site will find of value since it is a niche market.
Wel I am from New Delhi,India. Fond of reading books. Classical things attract me tremendously. I listento music whenever I find time.
I’ve been trying blogexplosion for a couple days. I’m just looking for any type of traffic since I have a general purpose humor site (not obscene or anything, it’s just supposed to be fun).
If you’re interested, check it out:
http://www.saynotocrack.com
I am trying out the BlogExplosion out of curiosity for past 1 week. So far, I am not 100%sure that those who visit my site will return back since mine is on a very specialized subject. Check out my site ( http://bug-free-zone.blogspot.com ) if interested.