Harness Group Intelligence, MyBlogLog Firefox Plugin
Our man SuperRaJJ in Jeddah whipped up a MyBlogLog Firefox Search Plugin. With the recent addition of tags to the search results The results are getting better by the day. Looking for sites about the environment, aviation, or cycling? Now you can check out search right from your browser chrome or for you keyboard shortcut junkies, <ctrl - k>.
More Pearls of Wisdom from Robyn
Robyn posts from the road 11 Ways to Boost Your Site’s Effectiveness using MyBlogLog over on the Yahoo Publisher Network blog. Today I learned a new word, "smarmy."
Guest Post: Unlocking the Social Inner Circle Code
By Andrew Wee
I probably clear hundreds of blog comments and MyBlogLog comments on a daily basis.
The reason? Falling foul of "schmoe" rules.
Schmoe, in case you're not familiar yet, refers to a "social media optimizer" gone wrong, a nice term for someone who tries to game the social networking system.
A schmoe schmoes up when their comments is deleted. And even though it might take all of 20 seconds to block copy and paste your comments on a strangers profile, it's still time wasted.
Want to up your Social Networking skills? Here's a primer.
The Social Inner Circle Code
It helps to be familiar with humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (check out: Do what you love, love what you do.
Maslow is one of the granddaddies of the theories now taught by motivational gurus like Anthony Robbins, T. Harv Eker and the like.
Breaking into the social circle requires that you provide value to:
1) The blogger
2) The blogger's community
Value is created when:
1) You provide a new piece of information
2) You provide a well-supported opinion to what the blogger said.
3) You provide an application of something the blogger wrote about.
Just to name a few.
You provide all this information freely and without any expectation of receiving anything in return.
Confused?
Some schmoe might be thinking, "Silly advice! I'd rather put 'Hey, nice blog! Come visit my blog at: www.Blog-I-Want-To-Pimp.com'"
Yeah, right. Those are the first comments I delete every morning.
Creating value means you give something freely, and something magical will appear.
Welcome to the concept of "social reciprocity".
9 times out of 10, the person or community I've contributed that information to, will send traffic to me without asking.
I'll get multiple backlinks to my blog entry.
And I'll sometimes get included on multiple blogrolls too.
How's that for breaking into the "Social Inner Circle"?
The moment you start doing this, there's a "viral" effect to this too. A single piece of advice might lead to 10, or even a 100 blogs linking back to you.
You may think that building a huge network takes a village, but in reality, it only requires a single good intention.
Be well.
Andrew Wee is a MyBlogLog Advisor and blogs about blogging, affiliate marketing and social traffic generation at WhoIsAndrewWee.com. His MyBlogLog profile is: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/andreww/
MyBlogLog Advisory Group
I want to introduce to you our advisory group. We're honored that all but one of the people that we asked to help us test new products and 'run things by them' accepted (and the one that did not was WONDERFUL in his rejection). You can't win them all, but he knows the invitation is still extended.
We put together this team so that we could get an impartial review of things that we were planning. No need to 'step in it' without at least getting their feedback first, huh?
Andrew Wee
Cord Silverstein
Wendy Piersall
Drew Meyers
We've already ask them a few questions and they've responded with great feedback. As we grow we'll likely expand the group just a bit, but it will probably never get larger than ten people. So, please give them a round of applause as I prepare their goody bags and look for guest posts and such from these guys and gals in the coming months.
See you at the Blog Business Summit?
If you're on the fence about attending the Blog Business Summit in Chicago (September 17 - 19), here's another reason to get you there. As a sponsor, we're able to offer a discount to anyone that registers via our sponsor page.
UPDATE: Please use the discount code P56CHI at checkout to apply the $100 discount.
If you're blogging for your company or thinking about doing so, this is a great conference. Share tips, tricks, and best practices. Maybe this will be the year we finally nail the way to define that ever-evasive metric, engagement.
Email Troubles, Right Here In River City
UPDATE: This is fixed. Woot for John!
When I realized today that our normal batch of several hundred a day had slowed down to zilch, it became apparent to even me that our emails were bouncing. We are working feverishly to fix this, but until then we've beefed up the Help section and for more intensive support please post a message in our Users Helping Users Group.
MyBlogLog as a Tokyo Subway Stop
The folks over at Information Architects Japan have re-purposed the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway map and made it into a map of the Web 2.0 world. Needless to say, we were thrilled to see our own little MyBlogLog tucked in and surrounded by the likes of Twitter, Google Blogsearch, and the NYTImes. I've spent a few years in Tokyo so a quick check of the original subway map shows that MyBlogLog is in Kagurazaka - an old neighborhood once famous for it's geisha houses but now populated with small publishing houses and animation studios fed by the numerous little French bistros tucked into the back alleys.
I think that just about sums up where we see ourselves.
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
It's been a busy six months and MyBlogLog is integrating nicely into Yahoo. We're on better servers, we've grown the team and there are some exciting new features in the works. Dare I say that the future is so bright that we gotta wear shades? So it seems like the right time to pull up stakes.
Maybe a little back story is in order:
About a month before my first son was due, the company I worked for laid off 90% of its staff. My wife and I were in Western Massachusetts, far from our families, and our entire social network was based around the fantastic friends we had developed among my co-workers. By the time Royse was born, nearly all of our friends had moved away. Since my job was to salvage the company, I took off about five days to spend with Jen and the baby and then I went back to work. It was a hard time. When Royse was seven months old, I had no income and I took out a second mortgage on the house so that I could keep working on MyBlogLog. My wife was willing to bet everything on me.
So now my second son is due on Tuesday and I plan on taking some time to enjoy it. I'm going to take care of Royse so that my wife can recuperate. Spend a lot of time with baby Parker. Maybe lose a little of the weight I've gained over the last two years from two startups and two pregnancies. Check MyBlogLog religiously to see how the new features are shaping up and how this wonderful community continues to grow (I'm member bpm140 and I'll be blogging at www.marcoullier.com).
It has been an honor working for you for the last two years. I've done some things that I'm really proud of and some things that make me want to hide under the bed. But these have been two of the best years of my life and I'm glad that I got to spend it with you.
As for the team, you all are simply the greatest group of people I've ever had the privilege of working with.
Emanuel -- We got to work with each other for what, eight hours? But they were a damn solid eight hours. You're going to kick ass with the team, I'm sure of it.
Ian -- You joined MyBlogLog because you wanted to get back to a place where things happened nonstop. Is it a coincidence that the week you started is the week we started developing full steam again? I think not. You've brought the fire back to the team.
Chris -- Damn, boy, you had one hell of a bar to meet. John and Steve are the finest programmers I've ever worked with and I didn't know how anyone else was going to meet my unrealistic expectations. Thank you for rocking from day one and blowing my mind.
Robyn -- You made what I thought was so hard look so damn easy. We were flooded with customer service and community management requests and I was in way over my head. Less than a week after you started, everything was running smoothly AND you had the gall to do it in four hours a day, leaving you plenty of time to make the community a better place day after day after day.
Micah -- Every time we met the site got better. It was like being in a jazz club and watching a master do his thing. Bonus: Friendliest. Guy. Ever. You know the janitors, man!
Rafer -- You may not be a part of the team anymore, but it would be criminal not to mention you here. MyBlogLog would still be a cool little stats feature if it hadn't been for you. You are my Yoda, amigo.
Steve -- It's not just that you do the impossible. It's that your so frickin' nice! I have no doubt that a little piece of you died every time I pinged you on IM at midnight and asked if you could make a tweak to the site for me. But you always did it, and you were always cool to this dumbass product guy who kept changing priorities on you. You are a good man.
John -- I go around stealing all the credit and saying "I'm the voice of the members" but it has always been a two-person job. Thanks for keeping us honest and having the guts to ask the difficult questions whenever the rest of us were rarin' to go. You're the heart of MyBlogLog.
Todd -- You are my best friend, bro. Thank you for everything.
I look forward to all the great things MyBlogLog's members will do in the coming years. I'm not going far -- it took me six years to get back to San Francisco; I ain't leaving any time soon. Feel free to give me a shout at eric@marcoullier.com if you ever want to play a little ultimate, go see a show at the Fillmore or just talk about the web.
Rock on!
Eric
Member Spotlight – Tim Ferriss
Being that two of us here in the office have spent the last few weeks devouring Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss, it only made sense to spotlight this Hot MyBlogLog member.
Tim is a successful entrepreneur who has realized sizable wealth working only four hours per week. However, now he is a writer and can stop saying that he deals drugs for a living (wink). More than just a 30 year old rich guy, which is impressive enough, Tim is also the first American in history to hold a Tango Guinness world record, a National Chinese kickboxing champion (bested 4 world champions) and speaks several languages, including Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish and his native tongue, English.
Besides his book, which is amazing (my review of Four Hour Work Week), Tim is also a supporter of DonorsChoose.org, which is currently in the running to receive $5M of support from American Express.
From the CEO of DonorsChoose.org, Charles Best:
...take 30 seconds and vote for our submission in the American Express Members Project. We’re in the semi-finals to win up to $5 million, all
of which would go to classroom projects on our website. We’re up
against stiff competition, but if people vote off of this post this
week, we could pull off an upset victory. And improve the educations of
thousands of public school students. It would be huge.
I'm bummed that I didn't get to meet Tim at Community Next last week, since I only attended the Friday revelries, but I'm glad that I am able to let all of you know about this uber cool MyBlogLog member. And, if your heartstrings have been appropriately tugged, please vote for DonorsChoose.org on the Amex site. Take time to check out Tim's community and say hello on his profile.
If you have a suggestion for a Hot Member, please Tag them as a Hot Member so that we can check them out too. As always, you can also email me at robyn@mybloglog.com with suggestions too.
Tags Are Searchable… But Wait There’s More
Per popular request, tags are now included in the MyBlogLog search feature. This should help your blogs be found more easily by people who need them. Likewise, this should make your own blog searches more productive. To find a relevant blog, you really now can search for 'health' and find a 'health blog'.
In the Community tab, the directory has also been removed, with a larger focus on the communities that are popular, 'hot' and new. The focus is still the Hot and New Communities, but we've removed the dead space to really show off the Hot Communities like they deserve.
A similar change will be made with the Members tab this week, with the directory biting the dust here too, and showing off some more hot, new and featured people in our community. This change will reduce the number of people who change their name to come up highly in the Member or Community Directory (ie gaming the system).
As always, thanks for all the people who suggested we kill the directory. Our hope is that can make the site as user-responsive as possible. Searchable tags and these revamps to the Community and Members pages just make good sense and we appreciate your pointing that out. Have a great week!
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