The MyBlogLog Blog The source for all things MyBlogLog.

MyBlogLog has a Wiki Entry

If you want to add your 2 cents to the article, please note that it's always helpful to add more references or to link to more categories.  Here's what the MyBlogLog member who spearheaded the effort to Wikipedia-ize us mentioned we might need:

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

MyBlogLog Is Looking For A Bevy Of Engineering Talent

The engineers we have at MyBlogLog are ninjas, and we constantly tell them how amazed we are at what they pull off here daily.  However, even ninjas must rest a few hours a day, so a few months ago we put out an all-call for more amazing engineers, to add to our growing team. 

Since we still have open spots, we thought we'd make a full-scale plea for top-notch talent with this video, created by StandOutJobs.com.  If you are interested in working in a really cool team and for a really cool company, please send your email to Eric@mybloglog.com.

Sign of the Times

Part of putting down roots at Yahoo is finding out how to get things done and who to talk to for what. I've been a huge fan of MyBlogLog and was psyched when they decided to join Yahoo. Once they got here, I hung out at their offices and took it upon myself to make sure they were getting settled. Long story short, we dug hanging out together and I'm happy to say that I'm now part of the team as the Product Manager.

Most of my work is behind the scenes. Coordinating with other teams at Yahoo, pointing out internal tools that the team can use, important stuff like casting the tie-breaker vote on where to go for lunch.

As a small team, we're not big on slick marketing campaigns and prefer to let the community speak for itself. If you visit MyBlogLog central, you'll see that we're not big on office decoration either. Our only decoration to speak of is a vase of flowers that I think were sent as a gift but is now a petrified reminder of someone's kindness. We share office space with a number of hip designers and information architects at the Yahoo Research Labs in Berkeley and they suspicious of our lack of decorative flair.

So when colleague Jeffery Bennett offered to print out our logo on a massive plotter, paste it to some fiber board and carefully trace our "cursed curved fonts" with an x-acto knife, we jumped at the offer. Secretly I think Jeff's motivation was so he could tag us in meatspace (he took the photo on this post too) but with the simple addition of this sign, hanging by two strands of twine from Eric's truck, we coalesced as a team and made our space our own.

So that's me in the picture above, in the back, pointing to our new sign and, figuratively, this is what I hope to contribute. Simple signs pointing to where people can find the things they need to help themselves to make MyBlogLog an extension of themselves. Looking forward to working with all of you on making the web a little more personal.

Web Analytics Pro Gives Away A MyBlogLog Pro Account

We really like the MyBlogLog Pro stats, but then we're biased.    I got an email earlier this week from Manoj asking if we'd donate a Pro account as part of the prize on a contest he's having over at his blog, and after seeing the blog contest we thought that would be a great idea.

I am looking for new posts on the topic specified below, I will be posting all the submissions on my blog and the post which receives the most visitor traffic after 1 week after their submission is posted will take home the prizes.

The Topic

"The Future of Search Marketing"

Sample Ideas (be as creative as you want)

- Google's continued dominance

- Upcoming marketing products

- Personalization

- Top 10 List why SEM will not exist

So, if you've always wanted to go Pro but didn't want to spend the money, here's your chance.  The contest has some other really great prizes that would be especially important to those hoping to make money with their blog (and many of us are). The contest ends on May 9.

UPDATE:  The contest is on TechMeme.

Calling on Interns

In addition to full-time programmers, MyBlogLog is looking for a couple of paid interns for the summer.  If you have some mad tech, business or community skills and want some killer experience, drop me an email at eric@mybloglog.com and tell us what you can do and when you can do it.

Requirements:

• You have to be proficient (but not necessarily a ninja) in either tech (think LAMP), community or project management.
• Must be available to work / meet in our Berkeley office three times a week.
• Must be self-motivated.  We're going to give you projects and help you finish them, but the bulk of it is in your hands.  Don't do the time if you can't do the crime

Looking forward to working with you!

MyBlogLog hiring two engineers

Have you got the web skills that pay the bills?  MyBlogLog is adding two engineers to the team and we'd love to recruit them directly from our membership -- after all, it worked with Robyn   If you are a kick-ass LAMP developer or Ops engineer, then we want to hear from you.

A couple of ground rules:

• You must be eligible to work in the United States
• You are either close to Berkeley, CA or willing to relocate immediately
• You must like gobs of money -- Yahoo! pays really well

There are two openings, so make sure to read both.  If you fit either of these positions and meet the ground rules above, please send an email to eric@mybloglog.com along with a resume and a list of sites on which you've worked.

-------------

Description
Position: Software Engineer

Location: US - Berkeley

MyBlogLog is seeking a
versatile Software Engineer with knowledge of PHP, MySQL, and
JavaScript.

Responsibilities include:

* Architecting, coding and testing new PHP/MySQL applications

* Architecting, coding and testing new JavaScript based site widgets

* Testing and improving existing MyBlogLog sites and widgets

Minimum Job Qualifications:

* 5+ years experience in PHP/MySQL development

* 4+ years experience JavaScript/DOM programming

Preferred Job Qualifications:

* Strong knowledge of security best practices.

* Strong work ethic and desire to help contribute to the future success of MyBlogLog

* Knowledge of Yahoo! operating environments and systems a big plus

Description

Position: Ops Engineer

Location: US - Berkeley

MyBlogLog is seeking an
Ops Engineer to keep MyBlogLog up-and-running securely and to plan
& manage future growth. Examples of duties include:

* Development of server/infrastructure growth plans for MyBlogLog

* Day-to-day management and maintenance of MyBlogLog servers

* 24/7 monitoring and recovery of server issues

* Working with security, corporate ops, IT, and other groups within Yahoo! to ensure system performance, security and compliance

* Keeping up to speed on security threats and best practices

Qualifications:

* 5-7 years experience in web software development

* In-depth knowledge of Linux server administration

* In-depth knowledge of server infrastructure, redundancy/fail-over & growth planning

* Must be happily willing to do what is needed 24/7 to keep MyBlogLog performing for our users

* Strong work ethic and desire to have Ops be a major contributing member of the team

* Knowledge of Yahoo! operations and processes a big plus

Pro Accounts For Microsoft MVPs

A MyBlogLog user, CoreyBryant, suggested to us that we offer Microsoft MVPs Pro accounts.  I've worked with several dozen MVPs over the last year and I think they are an amazing bunch of really talented people.  So, we all talked about Corey's suggestion and decided to do it.

So far we've only given away a handful of these, so if you are a Microsoft MVP, please let us know so we can update your account status to reflect it.  The only caveat is that you use the Reader Roll on your site.

Here's how it looks on Corey's site:

Any great ideas for us?  Put them here on this post or leave me a message on my MyBlogLog profile.

MyBlogLog at Web 2 Expo Monday and Tuesday

Todd and I will be at the expo all day on Monday and Tuesday so please drop me a note and let's schedule time to meet up.

Additionally, I just got added to a panel on the future of P2P (if you kind of tilt your head, it makes perfect sense for MyBlogLog to be there) and it would be great to have some MyBlogLoggers in the audience.  Here's the scoop on the panel.

20 messages a day — what do we lose?

I wrote a really long post today about where I'm coming from on this limit thing, but the team said "too long -- no one's going to read it."  I'll probably post it when no one is looking and everyone can ignore it

Instead, I thought I'd just post some examples of what messages have come up against the 20 unreciprocated message limit (without naming names, of course):

• Warm greetings and salutations!
• Hi! I'm holding a Technorati Favorites exchange on ----- and I was wondering if you might like to participate. Here's more info: http://www.-----.com/blog-website-promotion/-----/ Thanks!
• Hey! Hope you´re doing great! I just published a EBook called "-----" on my blog [ http://-----.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/----- ]. Would love to hear your feedback about it. Rock on!
• hi,have a nice day...see you at http://www.-----.it/----- Bye
• Hey how are you doing
• Hi , nice blog u have there !! Do visit mine at www.-----.net .Feel free to join my community
• hi Join new frinds @ www.-----.com @
• Do drop by mine at http://www.-----.sg/ for a laugh sometimes! If you like what you laugh at, care to join my community as well?
• Hi, we'd love to welcome you to Mybloglog community, hope u have fun. God bless you!
• Hey there wuz goin on?????? / Hey wuz goin on? ur a newbie rite? / Hey party guy wana chat?

And my personal favorite, just:

If I got this in my email box, you'd call it spam, so why is it not spam in my MyBlogLog message folder?