Discussions
Highlight Your Blog Posts on BC
Posted by TonyB • 8/31/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: blogcatalog content
We are planning on a revamp of BlogCatlog where we turn it into more of content / blog portal site and focus much more attention on great community blogs and posts.
From member feedback we've learned that very few members visit the home page and that we aren't doing very much to highlight the truly amazing talent that makes up the BC community.
I'd love to hear your ideas on how you would redesign the layout. Ideas include making it look more like blogs.com, a digg style system, technorati or a magazine style look.
All half baked ideas will earn you a 3 month upgraded BC account.
User Comments
-
Sounds interesting.
Right now there isn't a reason to look at the home page. Didn't you at one time highlight new blogs there? I think that would be interesting and make be drop by. -
video. give us video on the home page. You'll have to come up with something creative but in the age of youTube I know you guys can do it.
People want that total interactive media experience and if that simply means clicking on a tab or button and making sound or video appear you're interacting.
Make a promotional video providing instructional features of BC, exhibiting the numerous bloggers and interests with blog screenshots and of course show off the social network forums with all their controversial content. -
I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't ever visit the homepage.
I think if there were featured blogs or blog posts or something to capture my attention, I would be more apt to visit that page. -
Hmm, lets see if I can half bake an idea for ya.
Its true, I hardly ever go to the home page. I think you should highlight specific posts from exceptional blogs, I would actually read those artciles. I guess thats kinda like digg, I like to read the articles first rather than trying to find an article that I like from the blog. Even if its old posts from the blog I would still read it.
I think that would intrigue me enough to visit the home page every day. Just to check out which new articles are being showcased. And you can probably even make a certain widget or button for all BC members to add to their blogs so that the BC members themselves can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down.
A list of cool and interesting articles from blogs in your catalog on the home page would definitely be enough for me to visit almost on a daily basis. Of course, it would have to be updated on a daily basis as well. Anyway, thats as far as Ive thought it out. Gotta grab me some lunch.
buzz buzz-
@thefly...definitely half baked....
definitely things to think about!
-
-
you already have the share feature so why not use it to its full extent -
All half baked ideas will earn you a 3 month upgraded BC account.
If we have FULL baked ideas .. will that earn 6-month upgrades? What do you consider to be half-baked in the first place?!
I always thought it would be cool if you can somehow get the Wordpress Preview function (the old way) to be embedded in an iframe or something inside each member's profile .. and if you click on a link a new page opens up, or you can just scroll down without leaving BC. Generally, we see everything in the profile anyway ... the rss feed, description of the blog, etc etc. why not just see the blog as you would if you actually went there? -
No one visits the BC front page, and the BC Blog is hidden. How about killing two birds with one stone and integrating the BC blog into the front page of BC? You also need to add more categories to the BC blog, so that people can navigate it and find posts by subject, not just whether or not they're a guest blogger. With more categories you could give people a reason to write blogging help and other kinds of posts.
You could use the BC blog to occasionally promote posts and blogs. You could do this yourself and you could encourage bloggers who follow certain types of blogs to volunteer for posts too.
For any of this to work long-term, though, BC would also need to be more aggressive towards scrapers of their blog. The response I once got that there was nothing that could be done when I found scrapers was hardly designed to inspire confidence. It put me off the idea of making further contributions. BC should at least be able to file the standard reports to Google and other relevant addresses. It is, after all, BC's blog.-
That's true about the BC blog being hidden. I've only been there twice, when a link was left in a discussion.
What's a scraper? -
A blog scraper is another word for splogger. They use rss feeds to scrape the content of blogs they are stealing from.
-
When someone grabs your feed and uses it to produce automatic blog posts with your content. (In other words, they're scraping your feed.)
Edited to add: There are not always ads on these blogs, so they're not always obvious splogs. Sometimes they're playing other games. -
@tt - lol...splogger ... okay I think I know what that is...someone who steals content?
edit: ahh...yes, okay I do know what you mean now.
mark - 2nd edit ... 'cause you edited: what do you mean playing other games? -
"Splogger" is a spam blogger, someone who populates blogs with junk or stolen content simply to create a forum for advertising. They're not all scrapers--there are other ways to create splogs. -
Yep.
-
Scraping does NOT involve RSS feeds.
Scraping loads a page and "scrapes" the content from it.
Scraping is also NOT synonymous with spam. Technically, Google Scrapes your pages. It's just that the use they make of the content they scrape is more pleasing to most folks. -
Except that's how everyone I've ever read uses the term, so you might have already lost that definitional battle.
But how about a suggestion for Tony? -
Most people say Geo. Washington and Ben Franklin were Christians too, but that doesn't make it accurate, as you know.
-
@DaneMorgan
Thanks for the definition correction.
-
@TT, heh, no problem.
@ Mark, I missed the 2nd half. Sorry, you already know my only answer. Include hard coded direct links high in your content to a) other posts and or b) affiliate programs and or c) other VRE you control. -
Words and their meanings change. Facts don't. Your analogy doesn't work.
But what about my fantastic suggestion here? No comments on that? -
Mark..those are completely half baked Have to keep them in the oven a little longer.
-
-
What about including snippets from recent member posts on other pages of the site, rather than just in the spotlight area?
-
Interesting. Definitely provide more exposure and highlight more posts.
-
-
Ooh I could have fun with this... be back. -
I dislike any notion of BC Admin picking and choosing blogs to highlight or feature. To me that kind of idea smacks of popularity contests. There are over 80,000 bloggers registered here and most do not post to this forum.
Setting that aside, we already have to contend with the fact that the most high ranking BC blogs here are listed not only in their own categories but also in unrelated categories as was explained to me by thegoodknife.
the goodknife
"your blogrank plays an important role in determining what order or put the search results in. because both of those blogs have the word blogging in the title or description and have a high rank, they get a bump in the results."
Discussion found in this thread www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/the-blog-spotlight#comment_423323-
I missed that discussion the first time around but I've just read it and discovered...a very basic description of the way search works, whether on BC, on Google, on Yahoo, on a dedicated search engine, or any other place. Short of hand-sorting the 80,000 blogs you referenced, that's how it's going to work...and it's occasionally going to lead to anomalous results.
-
Do people get hits from BlogCatalog's search function? I don't seem to. Unless those are showing up as hits from my profile page. But I am getting hits from Google, and that's because of its ranking system.
-
I get hits from post tag listings on BC.
-
Could be hybrid community selection, community editors plus BC editors. Idea may be to turn BC more into a blog "news" hub where interesting posts would be highlighted in different sections. The home page would be equivalent to a paper's home page and then lead to internal pages with more interesting/top/great post snippets from members' blogs.
-
-
You could have a 'surprise me' feature that takes you to a random blog - like a stumble but for BC blog members.....
'Flick through Blogcat'
A rota desk type approach (think iphone - no pressure) that flicks through blog cat in a specific area for the less 'roll with it' amongst us.... -
Idea 1. Since BC is already polling our feeds for our activity and blog pages, and BC already semantically suggest related forum posts, why not salt in links directly to related blog posts from the rss feeds.
For bonus credits weight the blog posts AND forum posts shown as related posts based on traffic (how many times it has been viewed), activity (how many comments has it received) and Authority (how many other places link to it).
Items one and two could be calculated directly from BCs logs for forum posts and widgets for blog posts. This would also offer a bigger incentive to install the widget, since you blog data (visits and comments) would only be able to be gathered through the widgets. The third aspect could also be gathered the same way, but would probably be more efficient performing look ups at Google blog search or Technorati for the top x% of posts from the other two categories.-
Incidentally, for more ideas on ranking POSTS see aideRSS.com
-
@Dane... really interesting ideas here blog.aiderss.com/screencasts/introduction/
-
Actually, Tony, I just realised the info I wanted you to see is at postrank.com/ Thats whaere the description of postrank is.
It's reachable from aidRSS.com , but not obvious. -
And, yeah, it's the most significant thing to happen to feeds for guys like me with literally thousands of feeds in our readers in a long long time.
I love the thing.
-
-
Idea 2. Hire someone to write "Best in Blogs" and "best in Forums" posts. Task them to cruise the site looking for highly ranked POSTS from both blogs and forums and write up short "State of the Catalog" posts that highlight a dozen or so stories from different blogs and groups that are fairly popular that day.
Also have them look for "WTF" TOPICS and Write short pieces on those topics offering several viewpoints and linking out the the highest rated blog and forum posts on that topic.-
Dane, I always knew you were a half baked idea kind of guy.
-
Well, what can I say, you've always asked for fully baked ideas in the past....
-
I love Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream. Woooh ..... this is all staring to make sense.
-
-
@TonyB
I lean towards BC Admin choosing *NOT* to feature or highlight best in blogs or best in forum posts. What's best to one person may not be best to another.-
Why?
-
I do not see it as a feature or service that my blogs are likely to benefit from.
-
Is that the deciding factor in whether or not something is a good idea for the community and users? I don't particularly see it as something MY blogs are going to benefit from, either, but I'm thinking about it from a broader perspective. "Good idea" isn't synonymous with "pays off for me personally".
-
These are great ideas! Lots to think about.
-
I don't really see any reason why it should not benefit EITHER of your blogs individually, but collectively I am certain it would benefit BC and blogs owned by BC members.
-
I agree, Dane, that it would be generally beneficial.
-
-
Idea 3. This one will probably be unpopular right up front, but you have WAY TOO MANY categories. Cut the number of categories Way Way Way back so that they are manageable for a "front page" "recent posts" highlighting system and use tags for fine grained control of classification. Categories should be broad strokes, and tags add details. Academics is a category. American history is a tag.
-
@DaneMorgan
Now you have my interest ... maybe. -
@DaneMorgan
From what I see many BC members do not seem to understand tagging. Also I see BC profile pages that reveal nothing about the blogger and I see a lack of accurate blog descriptions on those BC Profile pages. I visit the blogs in question and find no profile page or about page on the blog.
So I suppose it's not surprising that when the same members post a Shameless Blog Promotion thread to the forum they do *NO* promotion in it whatsoever and get witchy when I point out that all they have created is yet another link drop thread.
I think it's ludicrous for those who are not prepared to promote their own blogs on their profile pages and in Shameless Blog Promotion threads to ask BC Admin to feature or highlight their blogs. -
I'm sorry. I thought I was doing a fairly passing job of promoting my blog here.
-
@DaneMorgan
"I'm sorry. I thought I was doing a fairly passing job of promoting my blog here."
lol ... Me too.
-
-
idea 4. Add the ability for members to bookmark Blogs, People, Forum posts and blog posts. DON"T ad voting. dig style or any other. voting is clutter. the fact that I bookmarked it mean I think it is significant. Let us tag the book marks. Let us subscribe to a data stream for other peoples book marks. Include lists of who bookmarked things from their pages (IE on a blog page there is a bookmarked tab listing everyone who bookmarked it) Even add a bookmarked tab to forum discussions). VERY COOL. make a bookmarked Widget that show who bookmarked a blog post in the widget, and has a link to an overflow page if there are too many to display in the widget. Include a bookmark this post link on the widget.
-
I already bookmark and I do not choose to share what I bookmark. Why should I? Convince me that sharing my bookmarks with other BC members will actually benefit my blogs by bringing them more traffic from the BC community.
BTW the last thing I need or want on my self-hosted blog is yet another BC widget slowing the page loading time and sending links back to BC.
On my free hosted wordpress.com blog well, javascript widgets are a no go. Currently, the only one we can use on free hosted wordpress.com blogs is the Recent Visitors widget. -
"Convince me that sharing my bookmarks will benefit my blogs by bringing them more traffic from the BC community"
There it is again. If that's your only concern, that's fine, but many of us are looking at the question much more broadly and might be interested in seeing blogs that are of interest to our friends, promoting other blogs that we enjoy reading,etc. -
@Madame X
Then put your energy into making your own case for your own "broad-minded" ideas rather than trying to chastise me.
Addendum: I have no difficulty whatsoever in locating blogs that are of interest to me. I use the BC search boxes and Directory to find interesting blogs. If others want to have new ways to have blogs of interest brought to their attention then it's up to them to post them the way Dane is doing. -
Actually, the bookmarks YOU make will benefit other peoples blogs. Your blogs will benefit from the bookmarking of other peoples blog.
TT, you are going to have to really rethink your marketing strategies in the near future. We are IN the relational web and fast moving toward the semantic web and interrupt marketing is fading away quickly.
As to widgets, I'm not sure whether BC has talked to Automattic or not, but if bloggers using systems such as that one enmasse demanded that Automattic talk to BC, it would not be long before you had a form to type your BC name into and a widget appeared on your blog. the only reason it isn't so now is because people are not communicating it as a need.
BOTH of these companies are VERY approachable, VERY responsive and VERY community focused. -
BTW... That there is an ability to bookmark does not obligate YOU to use it.
-
I'm not chastising you, TT, I'm just wondering why you'd invest so much in arguing against a potentially beneficial feature just because you can't see the direct payoff for you. I'm not sure why you're so confident that none of the 80,000 BC members you keep referencing would bookmark your blogs, but you're more familiar with your content than I am so I will accept your assumption that no one will find your blogs interesting enough to bookmark and so you will see no benefit...even if that's true, I can't see why you would object to others sharing.
-
@DaneMorgan
I'm working on the assumption that you have no trouble with me taking the devil's advocate position. That's why I'm not responding to the other blah, blah, blah. -
I don't have any problems with it.
BTW I just saw a subtlety I missed before. You asked how sharing your bookmarks would benefit their blogs...
Obviously YOU are a popular member and people will likely read your bookmarks. Further, the idea is to allow people not just to see, but to subscribe to your bookmarks and receive them in a stream.
If they subscribe to your bookmarks it is highly likely they are going to end up visiting a blog here and there they would not otherwise have seen.
There are a LOT of blogs here. It helps to be able to see what others whom you trust have seen and thought, "hey, that's good. I'm gonna bookmark it." -
@DaneMorgan
I said: "Convince me that sharing my bookmarks with other BC members will actually benefit my blogs by bringing them more traffic from the BC community."
Good pickup Now you have provided the response that I originally anticipated.
-
-
I think BC should hire Dane, lol.
-
I agree. If, in fact, the suggestion to hire a person to select and highlight is adopted, I can't think of a better person to play that role--I can't think of a member who has a better big-picture view. That assumes, of course, that Dane has time to undertake such a thing, which seems like a longshot to me.
-
I don't know, we have a number of professional writers here, I'm just a hack who never would have gotten to write if blogs hadn't come along.
-
Dane, as one of the professional writers who hangs out here, I can definitely say that I have worked with "professional writers" who are less clear, thorough, and engaging in their writing than you are. Everything you present here is well-thought-out, well-documented, and easy to understand. I've hired a lot of writers in my day, and I would hire you over someone with the right resume any day.
-
-
Idea 5. This IS a blogger community. Lets dig up all of the old posts on how to do bloggy things an make a "How To" page that links out to them from a central location. As more such posts are added, add them to the page.
I think I have to give credit for this idea to Mark. It seems I recall him mentioning something on these lines a couple months back. -
I've just looked at blogs.com and the issue with that is at a glance it just looks like another blog.
so really the issue is about how do decide on the right homepage interface as a dorway? Yes No-
I arrived in March and I like the front page set up then. FWIW I had no issue with the way the front page worked previously at all. Then, one day, out of the blue or so it seemed, the change was made that gave us the front page format that we now have.
-
I just remember adding my blog and then i met lots of people here
-
The way the front page was previously laid out brought traffic to my blogs.
I'm not aware of why it was changed.
Does anyone posting here now have the answer to why it was changed?
-
-
And, looking at digg, it doesn't look right either when
i arrive there-
I would really avoid the whole digg thing. there are so many "voting" sites out there, and they are so gamed, they become useless.
One of my favorite things a bout twine.com (private beta - PM me for invites, but ONLY if you think your will use it, I have 40 or so) is that there is no voting. -
DaneMorgan: I'm building a system that is VERY VERY difficult to game.
It combines Bayesian probability with a system that weighs each user's votes based on the number of their votes divided by the average number of votes per user. -
@Dane
I agree with your opinion that the voting sites are becoming useless. FWIW I joined twine but I could not figure out how to use it effectively. I felt like a lost person over there so I stopped using it. -
And then what, Kobra? Are you going to sell it or build your own network?
-
www.kobrasrealm.net/opinehub/the-best.php
Offended was interested in using it for HumorBloggers.com. If the BC staff want, and Offended doesn't mind, I'm willing to share my source code with them. -
The following sold me:
"Collect online content that interests you.
Share what you know and what you find.
Discover new content via recommendations."
The color of the text on this is almost lost:
"Twine is a new way to gather content and connect with people who share your interests."
Also the grey on grey.
But leaving that aside, as a first time visitor I'm enticed to go go further. -
Dinner time I've got to go. Catch y'all later.
-
But, statistically, in most systems, the average number of votes per user quickly approaches zero without the power users, who would be filtered out by a Bayesian system?
I don't know though, I have only a rudimentary understanding of these types of systems. -
I'm almost willing to say that the Bayesian formula is a work of genius for dealing with large numbers of votes; but for small numbers (less than ten votes site-wide), it is a little ineffective.
weighted rating (W) = (v / (v+m)) * R + (m / (v+m)) * C
R = average for the file (mean) = (Rating)
v = number of votes for the file = (votes)
m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 100 (or whatever)
C = the mean vote across the whole database
All I do to change this formula is modify R. -
TT it's definitely a different system. Do some reading on the semantic web and then re approach it. You are looking at it through a pure social web filter, because it's currently grouped in with the digg/SU/Reddit class of sites, but it's really a different animal.
Those sites are purely user vote/tag driven, while twine is semantically driven. -
@Dane, how does Twine come up with their results?
@VoodooKobra, would you mind explaining how your algorithm works and why its superior, in a way that a non statistician can understand? -
@Dane
I am visually challenged and I'm coping with the aftermath of a head injury. I will drop an email address into your shoutbox. If you can target specific recommended reading material on the semantic web and email the links to me I would truly appreciate it. -
TonyB: Certainly.
Let's say you have three blog posts and two registered users (Kobra and ChicaX).
Kobra has given PostA a 10 rating, PostB a 9 rating, and PostC a 10 rating.
ChicaX has given PostA a 1 rating, because it offended her; and voted 10 on PostB.
The average vote (C) is 8.0, and we'll say variable "m" is 2.
Based on pure Bayesian system, PostA has a 6.33, PostB has a 8.99, PostC has a 9.00.
With my modification:
Kobra's votes count as 1.2 votes, and ChicaX's votes count as 0.8 votes.
PostA = 7.04
PostB = 8.84
PostC = 8.67 (but it doesn't have enough votes to show up on the Top X page)
As for how it works, I think this link explains it better than I could:
www.thebroth.com/blog/118/bayesian-rating
I told thegoodknife about this like a month ago, and he mentioned that he used something similar for the BlogRank. So, this information might be completely unnecessary.
EDIT:
Oh, and a direct average looks like this:
PostA = 5.5
PostB = 9.5
PostC = 10 -
Forgot to mention:
The (v/(v+m)) and (m/(v+m)) always add together to equal 1. Because R and C are both rating scores, the sum is always on a scale from 1 to 10.
The Bayesian system is superior to simply averaging the scores because a net score of 10 weighs more on a website with an average vote of 3 than it does on a website with an average vote of 8. What this means is that it considers how the community votes as a whole, and weighs it appropriately.
To wit:
Website A - Average vote: 6.0
Website B - Average vote: 7.0
An article with three votes (10, 8, and 3) on each website will look like this (assuming m=2):
On website A: 6.60
On website B: 7.00
If we change the set of votes to (10, 8, and 6) without changing the value of C, we get this:
On website A: 7.20
On website B: 7.60 -
@TT, no problem. give me a bit to put together a selection for ya. And understand, that I'm on the fringes of this stuff. It's bleeding edge and these guys are way smarter than me. But I can smell enough to know it's where we are going, and it's going to be a cool ride.
-
@Dane
Wandering around in the dark is not productive so thanks. -
@voodo...truly,....thank you!
-
You're welcome. Sorry if it's a bit technical. I'm going to write a paper on it soon and (hopefully) get it posted in PZ Myers' weekly Tangled Bank.
-
-
Stumbleupon looks better but they've wasted the best real estate with join now. That top is such a good spot for defining who you are.
So what do you envisage to be on the (home) landing page?
Or do you create multiple landing pages that targets various types of users, regulars, newbies, business related and then have some sort of glue which holds it together by looking the same on each page, e.g an extra wide side bar on the right hand side? -
I'd like to see something like this:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2816051802_fce6820cc4_b.jpg
I just whipped it up for fun, but it's better then trying to explain it all. -
Wow ChicaX... you're good.
There are a ton of 1/2 baked ideas & 3 month upgrades here. I'll start doing them a bit later tonight and will send you each a shout when I'm finished. -
Thanks Tony, I couldn't code it to save my life, but I could whip it lol.
For me there is just nothing new and fresh on the homepage everyday, I never visit it at all, because of that.
have fun with all the ideas everyone is throwing at ya. -
@ChicaX... need some caffeine before printing all of these cool ideas.
Why hasn't the problem of how to effectively organize, sort and present blog posts already been solved? It seems like between blogs.com, blogcatalog.com, technorati.com and others... there is still some key aspect missing. -
I think it has something to do with there are just too many blogs too fast, and once it gets messy, it's hard to re-organize, let alone design!
I like how my old blogging platform designed there recent posts lists. www.efx2blogs.com/home.php -
Theoretically it should be easier for BlogCatalog to highlight blogs and posts since we only have a fraction of all the blogs in the universe.
-
Wow! okay, hire Chica too.
-
The biggest problems we have are approaching it all from a Dewey Decimal idea of classification. That was invented over a hundred years ago and meant for data written on index cards. It has limitations even within it's own domain, and is completely insufficient to the task at hand.
-
-
@Tony
I'm going to do a new post to answer your twine question.-
@Dane, Im excited to read about it.
-
@Dane
Me too.
-
-
What if noteworthy blogs are on our dashboards above it maybe?-
@shiley, hmmmmmm..interesting...something to think about. Definitely baking.
-
-
I think changing the link on the red and white bc image at the top to take you to the actual homepage would be cool too. It's a bit confusing when it leads to the dashboard, when I expect it to lead to the homepage.
-
I missed this one the first time around. I think that is an excellent idea.
-
-
I understand why you want to do something like this but I also have some major issues. Doing anything that requires voting on stories or posts is something that leads to a slippery slope. Anything that requires voting leads to being gamed... digg, bloggies, whatever. Also I hate having to send people to another place to vote. My participation on humorblogs.com dropped off the map when they decided to go to a voting system. All it turns into is a popularity contest or people trying to game the system.
Also I think Dane hit the nail on the head that there are too many categories. In order for any type of news setup to work we need to focus on the categories.
Personally I would rather see a system where there is more of a portal setup. Where you give a category let's say sports.blogcatalog.com or something that narrows it down. You can jam whatever you want on the main page but at some point it is just going to be too much. While Chica's design was cool it is just too much. There is so much information to consume.
Portals based on categories allow you to have a narrow focused, limit the amount of blogs and information that are being consumed, have people that are experts and following that area, and gives it a focus. If you look at social news sites they have begun to really become more fine tuned, with reddit using sub reddits and digg continually improving their customization.-
[Anything that requires voting leads to being gamed]
True, but you can always make it more difficult to game. See my posts above. -
I read it. It isn't just about it being gamed though. It is yet another place people want to direct votes from. It's being done in multiple places. I would rather see a selection of content handpicked then a bunch of user submitted content or the same people getting their content submitted.
-
The only problem with handpicked content, is who is going to do that, and who's to say there will be no favoritism there? I do like not having any voting system, as your right when you say it's a popularity contest.
-
I definitely think the portal idea is terrific. People who are looking for a particular type of blog can go straight to a page with new or featured blogs listed plus tags from which they can choose. That would also help bloggers decide which tags they should apply to their own blogs. Use the main landing page as a doorway to those sub-sites and a place to feature the BC blog, which is woefully neglected.
As for the voting, I'm with the majority here. A popularity contest and a reason for people to start "vote for me and I'll vote for you" threads (here or elsewhere) would only dilute the strengths of this site. Keep the rankings, by all means, and DaneMorgan's posts about postrank are also food for thought. But please don't introduce thumbs or bumps or kudos or whatever you might call them. -
I agree that more should be done with the blog.
As for having editors hand pick it. Who says it has to be one editor? Maybe have someone that posts what they think are the best posts about certain subjects that day. Along with that have a guest editor from some active in that niche to suggest blog/posts they like. Rotate it around, bring in new people to go with an established editor that maintains it.
I really think an approach that is taken like on the usa today pop culture blog pop candy would be good... Features on bloggers, links to stories, etc...
Then on the side they have automated RSS updates and other ways to blend content. -
Maybe guest posters on the BC blog would get to have their blog featured one day and then pick another for later. That way BC could generate interest in guest blogging and get help selecting the featured blogs (or posts or whatever).
-
That is a good idea... I just think the blog and even the social media series on monday's just kind of get lost in the shuffle because they aren't promoted very well on the site on in the community.
-
-
I'm pretty sure I hit the homepage several times a week, if not daily. I think highlighted blogs is a good idea -- maybe a different niche each day?-
Different niche is a good idea. I like what blogs.com did.
-
-
The question to be answered first it not what we want to see but what EVERYONE wants to see. Once we understand we don't know as much as we think we do we can teach and lead better.
At no point in coming up with a idea can we solely look at we do and do not like.
I feel that we need to think out of the box. BC need to look at companies like twitter, blogcatalog,digg, youtube, linkedin, facebook, tagged, myspace and see what those companies are missing.
What is next, not what is now.
Maybe we should try to answer these questions......
How can we make blogcatalog more attractive as a community?
What changes can be made to get the general public to visit blog catalog and participate in the community?
Why don't WE visit the front page and what would keep us coming back to the front page?
How can we feature a blogger or bloggers on a page that we will all visit?
What is the goal of featuring bloggers?
How can bloggers make money from being featured?
What aspect of blogging are we missing? Video Blogging, Audio Blogging, Micro blogging?
How do we keep bloggers engaged in the community outside of the forums?
Should we be teaching new bloogers or people that want to blog?
Just some questions.-
Honestly I think BC is going down the wrong route with a movement towards being a content hub or something of that nature. BC should be a resource center because there aren't any solid ones for bloggers. I would love to see BC be a resource to get different advertising systems on your blog, hosting, stats, etc...
They could tie all of these things together and become a one stop shop to acquire, evaluate, and monitor all of these tools. Most of the audience that comes to BC are lower level bloggers. Power users, power bloggers, and others of that ilk don't really come around here. I think there needs to be a little bit of focus on that segment. -
pointless,
that is a great point. I would love to see a training system that is based on Wordpress and Blogger, Widgets, Hosting and Stats with all this geared towards making each blogger better.
A ten week course on blogging and building your blog, finding your niche, and becoming the best. -
@pointless... a very pointless point Great perspective.
Are you suggesting a marketplace type section with all tools and options to comment and rate the tools or having the tools integrated into the Dashboard area? -
Describe a resource center...
the adult industry has things they call resource sites, that are actually pretty helpful, and I've never seen anything quite the same done in the mainstream side. -
@Dane.... what sorts of resource sites does the adult industry have? Any references?
-
-
Take for example advertising services. There are tons of different services out there and people don't know what the differences are, what blogs to they work for (like some services do really well with entertainment type sites and not political), and just what people have to say.
So we could have an area where we talk about these services, people review them, rate them, talk about them. BC could have a referral link to them and generate income if people sign up for them and try them out. (That is how problogger generates a lot of income.)
Or we look at offline blog composing software, hosting services, toolkits for blogger, where to find wordpress themes, etc... etc. Just by going through the forums we can see a massive amount of how to questions people ask about.
-
-
How about turning the home page into a statistics-oriented home page? Some bloggers may want to know how they compare against the 80K other bloggers at BlogCatalog. And also they may want to see which sites are most "successful" so they can adapt their own blogs to be more like the top sites.
You would have to choose statistics carefully but would probably want to consider blog searches, RSS feeds etc. -
Although I suspect you are laughing at my suggestions anyway .. I do have two more that I thought of tonight:
1) The Alexa Problem - Currently, they are storing their "avatars" (site thumbnails) on the S3 servers I believe, but they only work for root level domains. They do not work for subdomains or folders. I.E... I can't get a thumbnail for my site cancer.BattlingForHealth.com (won't read it) or PetLvr.com/blog/ (reads the root only). BC is a blog directory and already has a list of all the blogs that fall into this category - maybe you partner with Alexa and give them screenshots that appear in our profile over to them to use in our Alexa stats. I know this affects me at many sites .. including Perfads type of sites etc.
2) I'm trying to move into the cloud .. I've got Gmail.com Toodledo.com Flickr.com and a few that help alleviate the CPU resources of my server ... but, I can't settle on a good online password manager, and Amazon S3 doesn't work for us Canucks - just you Yanks... Maybe this can be considered and would follow under Pointless' suggestion about trying to fulfull what you are probably want to be in the first place - a resource for bloggers etc. What can you do to help me as a blogger in the years to come, to move out more in the cloud?-
@Petlvr
Re: online password managers. I recommend keepass
KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish). For more information, see the features page.
Yes, KeePass is really free, and more than that: it is open-source (OSI certified). You can have a look at its full source and for example check if the encryption algorithms are implemented correctly.
keepass.info/
keepass.info/features.html -
@PetLvr... I love your last question!
"What can you do to help me as a blogger in the years to come, to move out more in the cloud?" -
thanks timethief... will take a look! Tried both Passback and Clipperz and didn't like them.
//added// @tt .. actually, this isn't what I'm looking for - I don't want something that stores it on my hard drive .. I'm looking for something to store either on my server or an online service so I can access from 3 different computers anytime .. unless I'm missing something (still reading) // thanks anyway!
-
-
Feature the top blogs, per page views ala youtube hompage.
And have at least a blogger of the weak feature too !-
I used to belong to a blog community similar to this one, a local kind of group affiliated with our ISP.
In the beginning it was a peaceful, civil group that interacted reasonably well. Then the ISP decided it needed more spice, so it added a blog of the week feature, most popular blog (as decided by clicks), and a few other competitive features.
Within a year the community had broken into warring factions and the prize they fought over was who was the most popular, who was named blogger of the week, etc. People would sit and click their favourite blog over and over again to boost the hit count of their friends, and mount spam comment campaigns against members of the competition. Before the year was out, all of the original bloggers had abandoned the place (including me). The new bloggers who replaced them inherited a contentious, polarized group: they thought this was how it was supposed to be, so they kept it that way. I occasionally drop by...the few community-minded bloggers who are there don't seem to last long, but the rude "win at any cost" types thrive. It reminds me a lot of Digg, a place I decline to frequent.
Anything that smacks of competition will bring out the worst in some people...and eventually the "good" bloggers will get tired of the flak and leave. In virtually any community there are members who will make every attempt to "win" at any cost, even if the cost is the destruction of the community.
I think the lack of competitive features in this place is one of its best features and should NOT be changed. Anything that allows one (or a group) of members to be perceived as "best"...even for a limited time...opens the door to ruthless competition and cheating: in that previous group we had a couple of guys actually hack in and change the hit count of their favourites...one guy gained more than 20,000 hits in a single night!
Change may be good but competition inside a heretofore peaceful and internally non-competitive group can easily spell its destruction.
-
-
-
Heh. I were bad....
-
How bad were you?
-
-
So I kept on thinking and took a step or 2 further.
With the help of some copy and pasting I redesigned the front page of BC and added somethings to it. Oscar, forgive me in advance, I do not have your skills. At the end of this post is a link to a redesign.
1. I added a news section, this would consist for several sections, world, united states, Politics, Sports, Technology, Science, Health. Each of the categories would have sub categories. For each News Section a blog would be featured for a 24 hour period or a 1 week period, but the news would always rotate. The news that was supplied would be supplied but other blogs.
2. A blogging classroom section would be added to the front page with rotating topics....... Clicking on a link would take you to the BC blogging Classroom.
3. BlogCatalog would incorporate or set up a Video blogger section on the site. This would include our video blogging friends. Also we could add audio bloggers. Using the Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Services (S3) provided by Amazon BC could allow for video bloggers to host there content on BC. Short ads could be added to the intro of the video.
Right now BC is not capitalizing on the video market.
4. On the right hand side of the screen there is a banner that states
BLOG
STOCK
TRADING
REAL
TIME
REAL
FUN
REAL
TRAFFIC
This would be a virtual stock market for blogs.
The concept is buying and trading stock shares with a virtual currency. The better the blog the better the share price. This concept would include speculating, buying, selling, trading, shorting, and buying blog futures.
Here is a link to the front page redesign. Sorry Oscar, I don't have your skills, but I hope the idea and concept comes across.
amiridesign.com/idea.jpg -
I admit I never check out the home page...
If you were going to turn the home page into something like the digg style then a voting system would be cool for articles the more votes an article gets the more chances it has to show case the article head line on the front page...
Giving more viewers an chance to discover the article but to make it fair the voting system should have like a thumbs up and a thumbs down option...
also the article head line should have a time limit to be on the home page regardless how many thumbs up it gets to be fair to everyone else...
and for the thumbs down option.. it should be set up like if a viewer don't like the article then they have the option to click the thumbs down option then it hides the article head line from them...
and after a cretin amount of thumbs down it should get buried from the home page and archived under the appropriate category for search purposes..
P.s. the Thumbs up & thumbs down option should only allow the
viewer to vote once regardless which way they vote.
Teck
teckline.wordpress.com-
@Teck You wrote: "after a cretin amount of thumbs down"
Surely you meant to say "certain"?
Allowing members of a community to vote for against other members of a community (yes, I know we wouldn't be voting for people, but that is how people will perceive it) is a recipe for hurt feelings, polarization and retaliation.
The system can be set up to allow single votes, but virtually any system can be hacked and redirected. I've seen it done, and a very nice community destroyed as a result.
Introducing competition into a heretofore cooperative community is like putting the serpent into the Garden. I've seen it happen before and would hate to see it happen here. -
I was thinking that there'd be cretins who would purposely vote down people's pages.
-
-
I think it would be important to take out all the blogs on here that haven't been active for over 4months...then you can go through the process of acurately categorizing blogs. I do agree that featuring blogs on the homepage would be nice at random.
It may be nice to get blog reviews in addition from the BC staff. -
I would definitely like to see a 'how to' type page, with some really basic stuff that would help out those new to blogging.
So a 'tip of the day' type feature would be cool. -
A way to make the front page more relevant would be for all new posts in listed blogs to appear there. This gives everyone their moment in the sun and makes for a more interesting front page. -
Love the idea. Not expecting to get any traffic since I'm a niche blogger that likely won't fit into the default categories, but I think it's something that could generate a lot of traffic to a few blogs.
Some of the techie aspects of the discussion are a bit over my head, admittedly - but let's face it. We all spend a great deal of time here, and the improvements you guys come up with are top freakin' notch already.
Sure - go for it. Would love to see how this all works out in the end. I'm not really here for the traffic, but I know I'd be blushing with pride if I ever made the featured blogs. -
Is there anyway I could link my blog, or blog catalog profile with my facebook one?
Could this help to bring in more readers and contributors/members.-
Yes - go to your profile. Go into "my communities" and then "manage my communities" and you can add youtube, facebook, my space, twitter, etc. account information. That way others can find you, and if you/they want, allow them to see what you update on those networks.
If you look in my profile you can see a link to facebook, etc.
-
-
Hi all,
I use HI5 for drive traffic. -
There are some amazing ideas here. Thank you for sharing them with us. Everyone who shared an idea should have received 3 month upgrades on your membership. Please let me know if you didn't.
Add Your Comment
This discussion has been locked.
