Thanks for stopping by! Hey, why don't you do what all the cool kids are doing and subscribe to my RSS feed? You know you want to, so go ahead, be bad, be very very bad... :) Thanks.
If you have read any of my previous posts, you know I am a big fan of MyBlogLog. I have found it to be a great place to get exposure for this blog as well as be introduced to some great writers and blogs that I was not aware of. This weekend, I was catching up on somethings that I let slide at the end of last week because of some work responsibilities and I logged onto MyBlogLog and had a number of new admirers who had added me to their contacts. Though several of them did not bother to add themselves to my community.
Now I have not been a member of MyBlogLog that long so I welcome any and all input from other members. My question is why do contacts matter? To me this seems like just a social tool that makes people feel better by adding “friends to their circle”. But in the context of MyBlogLog, does it matter? I could care less how many contacts I have, my priority is growing my community for this blog and joining other blog communities that interest me. So if I had to prioritize between having 300 contacts and 50 members in my community or the other way around, I would choose the more community members in a New York minute. Am I right here or is my thinking off?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Technorati Tags: MyBlogLog
Personally, I think its a bit redundant to have contacts and members but I’m not exactly sure which means more. Say for instance that you run several blogs. You may get one contact that becomes a member to a few if not all your communities. The contact is the important part at that point. Now if someone is adding themselves as a contact but not joining the community, then I think that misses the point a bit, however, if that same person adds themselves as a contact and then subscribes to your RSS, the end result is the same if not greater.
My personal opinion is that if someone joins your community, then they should be automatically added as contact. For those that add themselves as contacts but don’t join communities and don’t subscribe to the RSS feed, I think they’re are missing the point and just trying to grab as many “friends” as possible. It doesn’t help either side to just have a bunch of people in your contacts and don’t interact in someway.
I guess the reason the folks at MyBlogLog made it so you could have both contacts and members is because there isn’t necessarily a clear cut way to define what works best for each user.
Dave, thanks for the feedback, but I have to disagree with you. You having me as a contact, what value does that give to you? You know my email address if I chose to show you? Other than that, nothing, except it is another notch on how many contacts you have. I think we can say what works best for each user and what does not. I should not have to click twice to join your community, but right now I do.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Hi Cord,
I’m with you regarding community members being more important.
It’s nice to see you sharing it around, unlike some of the bigwigs (who shall remain nameless) who are happy to have large communities, but don’t share the love back. I guess fame does that to you
Cord - it’s an interesting question - contacts, community members or both?
I definitely think community members means a bit more, but I think contacts does mean more than just fulfilling ego. You can leverage those contacts over time into real relationships. Not that you need thousands of contacts, but it doesn’t hurt.
Ben, I totally agree with you that you want to develop relationships with people you enjoy reading, but that does not mean you need to separate what communities you join and who are your contacts. That is why I suggested that if you join a community, you automatically add them to your contacts. I just think right now, it does not make a whole lot of sense. Thanks Ben!
Meg, I don’t know if it has to do with fame. I know from talking to some of the larger blog owners on MyBlogLog, they do not want to be seen as just accepting everyone just for the sake of having a large number of contacts. I think it is a balancing act and that is why I think contacts and communities should be combined.
Comment a little late Cord, but a great question. MyBlogLog is a bit confusing. I like more community members. In order to do that I need more contacts. But I don’t add contacts without some reflection - at the very minimum commenting on their blog - so it limits my community. What bugs me is when I go to an “admirer” page and see that they have 1- 2000 contacts. How does one keep track of that many contacts?
Bob,
Better late than never on the comments, so no worries. When someone has 2000 contacts, they are doing nothing other than getting as many contacts as possible to make themselves feel better. Though as my dad use to say, that is why there are 31 flavors.
Thanks for the comment.
As a new member to MyBlogLog, I can see it has a lot of potential for blog exposure and discovering new blogs and bloggers. And I like the community feel.
I think they could do a much better job of explaining the difference between and the benefits of, contact and joining communities. Even better, how to get the most from MyBlogLog.
It wasn’t - and still isn’t - apparent to me that to have communities you need to have contacts… (if that is indeed the case).
If one or the other is redundant, then why is it there? I would say if I joined someone’s community they should automatically become my contact - and vice-versa.
Britgirl - I agree with you that if someone joins a community they should be a contact automatically. I think you need to remember that MBL is only in its infancy and I guarantee that it will change in the future. We will see what happens. Thanks for the comment.