The Rise Of The Question Marks
If you've ever wondered where the "Hot In My Communities" comes from, you are not alone. A significant number of emails come in each month requesting that certain links from there get removed, for whatever reason. It's then that I explain what Hot In My Communities actually is doing in your sidebar.
Hot In My Communities is a list of the most popular links in your communities, *your* being the operative word. So, all you have to do to remove them, is to leave the community responsible for the link. Until now, that has been extremely difficult, especially if you belong to a large number of communities.
However, we've gone question mark crazy, and given you a way to determine, finally, where those darn links are coming from. For instance, these are the links that are Hot In My Communities for my profile.
Let's say I don't want links like Fox.com (#1) showing up in my list. All I need to do is click the question mark (?) to see which of the sites I read have linked to Fox.com to cause it to appear in my list.
I see that Fox.com was linked to by Casual Keystrokes, and since I'm not willing to remove myself from one of my favorite communities (Char is a great blogger), Fox.com will stay. If I did want to remove myself from her community (perish the thought), I'd travel to her community on mybloglog and click the big green button that says "Leave Community", top right-hand side of the page.
Now, if you have some spare time, go check out your own question marks. Seeing where those links come from is half the fun of the list.
Working out some kinks
We're working out post-integration kinks and the site is running w-a-a-a-a-y slow. Rest assured, no data is being dropped and the Recent Reader widget is running just fine. We're just having some issues with a squirrelly database.
The team has been on it since last night and I'll continue to post updates here on progress.
UPDATE: We've got a temporary fix in place so the site is running normally. We are continuing to work behind the scenes to get this resolved permanently. Shiny new servers need to some additional spit and polish.
UPDATE: We're back in business. Anyone having some problems logging into their accounts or any other UI shenanigans that has not contacted customer service, please do so we can be sure we've taken care of everyone.
One Less Password to Remember
Although some of you felt the growing pains today (sorry), we are proud to announce that MyBlogLog now supports Yahoo IDs! We've been anticipating this release for a long time so the we're really psyched to finally get this out to you. As Robyn said earlier, there are a number of great things about this. The highlights:
- Fancy new image uploader for userpics (5MB image? No prob!)
- Userpics hosted on Yahoo's global image cache = faster performance on your widgets
- Update your screen name by yourself, it's now called a nickname
- Your nickname is the same across several Yahoo sites
- Share optional info such as your age, gender, and location across Yahoo
- One less password to remember
In order to merge your account, you need to either edit your profile or logout and log back in. This will drop you into the merge process which is real quick (believe me, we know because we tested it hundreds of times). Because the Yahoo image cache supports high-resolution images, you'll need to re-upload your userpic so have a nice photo ready beforehand.
High fives all around to Todd, John, Chris, Steve, Manny, Robyn and the Yahoo folks that helped make this happen. We're pretty sure we've worked out all the kinks but one can never be sure. If you find anything, please leave a comment below.
Time to go buy John a nice, cold beer.
Hot Member: Easton Ellsworth
The hardest working blogger in blogbusiness, Easton Ellsworth is this week's Hot Member. Besides being absolutely adorable, this blog master is the go-to guy for business bloggers. He's also a devoted husband and work-at-home dad, even though he looks waaaay too young to be a father!
Easton is a blog network editor over at Know More Media, a business blogging network with a healthy appreciation for Pez, Star Wars and fun. He also writes the very-successful Business BlogWire, which is one of the most linked-to business blogs out there. Easton's got a passion for blogging and a real talent at community building.
I've been honored to work directly with Easton on several projects, including a Fortune 500 blogging wiki that got some major coverage. When Easton told me a few weeks ago that he was again looking to hire bloggers, I knew it was time I introduced him to all of you. So, take some time to check out Easton's profile and his blog. As always, if you have a suggestion for a future Hot Member, tag them as Hot Member and let me know about it via email.
Insecticide Needed: We’ve Found A Bug
We found a bizarre error when we pushed the Yahoo! IDs live today. We decided, rather than put all of you through a painful login twilight zone, that it would be better for our members if we restricted access to the site until we figure this one out.
So, while we tear our hair out fixing this one, relax away from your computer for a little while. We'll be back ASAP!
PS Judy and Johnnie rule!
UPDATE: We're back up but there is still some wonky behavior. Thanks for your patience and your emails of, erm, love. 
Ahoy! Talk Like A Pirate Day
Another year, another Pirate Day. Spend a few minutes today in character as your favorite bootlegger, and don't forget to drop anchor and take the talk offline too.
And, stop by Flickr, and get your talking Pirate. If you speak Pirate, and today you'd better, take a look at Yodel for the low-down.
Yahoo! IDs Are Coming Next Weeks
Looks like it will be just a few more days before the new IDs are ready. Our projected launch is Monday, and barring any yuckiness you'll be greeted with a brand new login system that day. However, if we find any bugs, we'll hold off a few more days in order to crush them with resounding finality.
In the meantime, over the next few days you may see some wonkiness with MyBlogLog, like crazy comment faces behavior, avatars not showing, stats and links not tracking well, etc. As always, we apologize profusely for any growing pains. Thanks for your patience!
Yahoo! IDs – Another Milestone For MyBlogLog
After weeks of warnings, the Bay Bridge, that connects the East Bay (where I live) with San Francisco, was closed for four days this weekend. They spent days cutting out an old section and seamlessly replacing that section with a more stable portion of bridge, durable enough to stand up to a San Francisco earthquake. When Ian and I were talking today, we realized that the situation we were experiencing here in our office was similar.
Our engineers have spent the last few weeks hunched over their terminals with the sole goal of integrating Yahoo! IDs with our MyBlogLog logins. With no service outages and no adverse effects to our customers in that time, they've built a new road for our logins, that we can just 'jump over to' in the next few days. You can't imagine how proud we are of our spectacular geeks. (sniff)
So, without further beating around the bush, I want to let you know that later this week we will be merging all MyBlogLog accounts with their owner’s Yahoo! accounts. We are doing this to ease login issues here at MyBlogLog (almost 20 hours of my time each week) and because it will greatly increase the integration possibilities for MyBlogLog with other Yahoo! properties.
The only bugger is that you will have to re-upload your avatar image (groan). We’re going to be using the Yahoo! image uploader so it’s imperative that we save a larger, higher resolution image from each of our members. The benefits, even above having an easier image upload tool, are that your images will not only look better, but will load faster (Hooyah! even speedier Recent Reader widgets!). And, since each of the new uploads will be eyed by a customer service agent, you will see fewer 'racy' images on avatars. Could this get any better? But wait, there's more...
Now you can choose to keep your current name, use your Yahoo! name or even change your screen name completely. And, no longer can only one person be a name. If you want to be Sam, regardless of whether or not there is already a Sam, you can still be Sam. Nicknames can be changed at will, and nicknames, just like in real life, can be shared by many people. No more 'Change Screen Name Verified nonsense... Reinvent yourself as often as you like!
In all seriousness, the migration should be relatively painless, but we do expect some snags. If you have any questions or if problems arise, we’ll be here to help via customer service. If you can’t find the answer on the Help pages, please don’t hesitate to email customer service.
Thanks for your patience while we are improving. The end result will be a better MyBlogLog.
Building and Banking Your Social Dollars
As a follow up to the concept of "social reciprocity" mentioned in "Unlocking The Social Inner Circle Code", one of the key concepts are "social dollars".
They don't have a tangible value, but are a measure of the social goodwill you built.
Believe it or not, relationships can build to a deep level, even if the person lives 12 time zones away or is someone you haven't met (aside from seeing their avatar), 5 year relationship notwithstanding.
A friend told me about the concept of a "goodwill bank".
In any relationship, the things you do have the effect of depositing "social dollars" into the goodwill bank, or withdrawing from it.
Helping out a friend in need = depositing social dollars into your balance.
Asking a friend for a favor = withdrawing social dollars from the same balance.
Your social dollar balance has a way of accumulating "interest" too. As you continue to help people, they'll naturally talk to their friends about it, give you a recommendation in a social network, blog about your efforts, create buzz about you in the forum.
The best form of social goodwill is accumulated paradoxically through altruistic means...meaning if you set out solely to help someone out, without any expectation of reward, you'd probably get the biggest return from that.
Call it the "pay it forward" effect if you will.
If you help three people, who go on to help another three people each, inevitably, you'll perpetuate the cycle of goodwill and the returns come back to you multiplied a hundredfold.
The bottom line: Help others WITHOUT any expectation of a return and you'll get rewarded sometime and it'll come back to you multiplied many times over in the most pleasant manner possible.
It might be that newbie blogger or internet marketer whom you extend a helping hand to and subsequently becomes a superstar and helps you out in turn.
The universe works in mysterious ways.
To allay some readers doubts that "no post by Andrew Wee would be complete without the mention of schmoe", here's the schmoe take on things.
A schmoe on the other hand will help someone or do something SOLELY for the purpose of profiting from it. In 99% of cases, the effort will be transparent to the point of laughability...and part of the torrent of spam comments or emails I get each morning.
If you're constantly withdrawing social dollars from the goodwill bank, expect to be hit in an unexpected fashion...the likelihood is that it might be unpleasant though.
As Spock says "Live long and prosper"...and the pointy-eared dudes are usually right...
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/
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