MyBlogLog – A Proper Community around Your Weblog and 5 Reasons Why You Would Want to Install It

Tags: MyBlogLog, Metablogging, Widgets, Blogroll, Communities, Knowledge Management, KM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Software, Web 2.0, Web Presence, Knowledge Discovery, Expertise Location

If you have been visiting this weblog’s homepage over the last couple of weeks, you would have probably noticed how I have been trying out a new widget that, over time, I have grown to become very fond of. More than anything else because a whole bunch of the folks I follow on a regular basis have actually been trying it out themselves and with some very positive feedback so far. So I had to tried it out myself and see how it would go and so far I am *loving* it. It is called MyBlogLog and you would be able to find some further reviews over here.

There are many reasons why you would want to check MyBlogLog, specially if you have got a weblog or a web site of your own. Perhaps all of those different reviews out there would be able to give you some clues as to why it would be worth while. However, I am going to take a different approach for this weblog post. Instead of detailing some of the different features I am just going to mention the Top 5 reasons that attracted me to try it out and why I have included it in my weblog’s template so that you can check it out as well and participate from it.

To get things started, MyBlogLog is just a basic offering that allows to keep track of the folks who get to visit your weblog on a regular basis so that you can build up a community around them and get to know them a bit better. As simple as that. Now, let’s get down to the Top 5 reasons why I feel it is worth while a try:

1. Keep track of your readership: Yes, that is right. You would be able to keep track of the different folks who keep coming to your weblog on a regular basis in such a way that over time you can build up a sense of the community of folks who get to read of your weblog posts. This is particular handy for those weblogs where there are not many comments shared, but a good readership. This reason alone would give you a good check on who gets to read you and who is interested in what you have got to say. Plus you can keep track of stats, too, if you wish.

2. Web presence (Importance of a picture): This is one of my favourite reasons why I like this particular offering. With MyBlogLog I have got the opportunity to "sense who is out there" reading about my thoughts and be able to connect to them through their picture, avatar or whatever image they would want to make use of. It is undeniable how powerful a picture of someone out there on the Internet can be, and if that someone is one of your readers, then it surely makes it worth while all the way! Why? Mainly, because next time we may bump into each other in real life we may be able to recognise each other!

3. Connect webloggers and … their weblogs: I am not sure if you folks have been able to check this out, specially those of you who may have been using it already for a while, but one of the reasons why I really like MyBlogLog is the fact that it allows me to find other webloggers, and their weblogs, who may share my same interests. In fact, ever since I put it together I have been able to add to my blogroll a number of different webloggers that I am sure I would not have known in any other way. Just for this reason, it rocks!

4. Interact with webloggers: And with their weblogs, of course! That is right. One of the other interesting capabilities from MyBlogLog is that one that allows you to exchange both private and public messages with the members of your network / community on whatever the topics and you then are able to build further on those relationships beyond the weblogs themselves. As an icebreaker, ideal! And not only with those folks who come to visit your weblog, but the people who keep visiting the weblogs of those who you get visits from. And the community keeps getting bigger and bigger and much more meaningful because you actually end up creating different complex connections that allow you to establish a much better ground for collaboration and knowledge sharing with those who share your same passions.

5. Find other communities and members: And, finally, one of my other favourite reasons. Even if you weblog does not have much readership just yet you can still use MyBlogLog to build up further on it. How? Well, just searching through the Communities and Members options you would be able to locate other communities related to your favourite topics, or you could also try to look for members who you feel may be there from other. So with a little effort you can build up and arm yourself with a good set of connections to get things going and the most interesting part of it is that once you get started with that it will only be building up further. Like the snowball effect type of thing. Yes, only a little work on a weekly basis, for instance, and you are off to a great start!

As you can see, lots of great stuff coming out from MyBlogLog. I know there are plenty more nice goodies coming along with this offering but these five are the ones that have certainly convinced me to give it a try in this weblog and see how things go. So far I have been getting lots of positive feedback from folks I knew were there but that, thanks to this offering, I have now got a much better chance of connecting with them. Through my weblog. Very impressive! Of course, I am certainly going to keep track of further developments but so far I am quite delighted with it. So what do you think? What is the main reason for you that would make you use such a fine offering as MyBlogLog?