MyBlogLog Pitfalls
Posted on July 2, 2007
MyBlogLog is one of the best social media concepts for bloggers. It has many solid features and will likely only get better as it matures. There are a couple of pitfalls however, that it needs to avoid, if it’s going to have lasting value for it’s members.
- Spam. Message spam is on the rise. The new feature where you can spam your whole community with one submission is likely to reduce community membership. "Come visit my blog" messages without any warranted information is unwanted traffic. The "Message Members" function would be better served to post announcements to the community page and solicit comments back.
- Feed issues. I’ve noticed that my feed is not being updated in MyBlogLog. Other communities like BlogCatalog and applications Google Reader are not having the same issue with the same feed source. Feeds for blogs are an essential element. MyBlogLog needs to do some quality control to make sure that the basic features are rock solid.
If MyBlogLog were to focus on the pull aspect of blogging, giving users the option to view and subscribe to information, they will do well. If it becomes an expedited avenue for spam, for excessive messages to it’s members, another superior product will emerge and they will lose significant market share.
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Comments
14 Responses to “MyBlogLog Pitfalls”
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Bang on and I have withdrawn from the communities of the worse offenders. We should have an opt-out ability.
Peter, Yes that would be the minimum they could offer. My way of thinking is that a community would be something folks would visit to interact, much like the blogs as apposed to receiving a great amount of unwanted broadcast messages. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
I’ve noticed the spam issues for a while now. The viral tag issue is buzzing, too. Funny to read about but not funny to be tagged….Kind of tugs at me when I enjoy reading a particular blog and I’m left hesitating…
Check out my new theme when you get a chance and try to ignore the flashing feed thingy. I have translation options now, though.
Kelly, Seems like a whole lot of nothing w/ the spamming and tagging. Really a nuisance. Like your new template. Some nice features.
I haven’t joined too many communities for the very reason–I don’t want to get spammed. I rather have people as my contacts instead. This might sound small…but, I’ve wished they had this feature for a while now, and that’s the ability to edit your comments you leave people. I hate going back and seeing a typo or leaving a comment public that needed to be private. I think every comment or reply feature in all formats should have an edit bottom!!
Ann, I agree with you. They should allow us to edit our comments. That would be a really great feature to add. The spam was pretty bad before the latest super-spam feature. Hopefully they’ll hear from enough folks that it will make a difference. Perhaps if enough people respond to this post in comments, they’ll pick-up on the volume of conversation and do something about it. I’m sure they will find this post.
I don’t use it for the feeds. I use it to find out what communities other bloggers belong to. I’ve met some really great people too
I also like using it to see who’s visiting my blog (their pics).
Cherann, Yes I agree with you. MyBlogLog is a really cool deal. I am not down on them, just hoping they will do some mods to keep it a crisp and useful site for everyone. I agree those are great reasons and enjoy the interaction, like seeing folks avatar on this blog too.
The ‘come visit me feature’ happened when I was on a sabbatical and I still don’t know what it means or how the communal message works…. for me communal messages or emails or mobile sms’s are sort of… I don’t know insulting even… like someone didn’t care enough to talk to me.. maybe a bit old-fashioned…
the communal post on one’s blog I understand … I have doe it myself…
Random, yes, if you have a statement to make, I think that should be made on your blog or profile page as apposed to blanketing out to everyone. I agree with you. A bit insulting. Probably a good 60% of these comments are spam, which in my book is any generic message left on multiple folks page whether automated or not.
I agree with you wholeheartedly…even if you do send the same message a little editing with copy paste and making sure you address the person… makes a world of difference… like I said I’m old fashioned
I don’t think that is being old fashioned, sounds more like common courtesy to me.
For starters I’d just like to say that “you so totally rule, dude!” becuase I’m now going to disagree with you.
Have a look at this: http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_1/nichols/ which I feel sums up not just open source development but the public beta techniques of Web 2.0 style sites.
Things are created and may be weak, or simply holding patterns - take UI for example this public use of early versions “…can lead to an acceptance of certain clumsy features. People invest time and effort in learning them and create their own workarounds to cope with them. When a new, improved version is released with a better interface, there is a temptation for those early adopters of the application to refuse to adapt to the new interface”
The same is true of MyBlogLog - they put it out as it was very rough arround the edges and much of the colouring to do. They are now doing that colouring in and people who have grown happy with the black and white are now not so in tune with the changes.
But I ask you - what is the point of joining a community? Prior to signing up for the mass emssages there was no clear bonus at all. I used to do it to avoide friending people I had no intention of talking to so I could get thier attention. That in itself is a loophole.
The issue here is not that they are now opening up to spam it is that they stopped exploring the possible for too long. The ground shifted and the behavioure required for low spam changed. It will change some more too.
If Bob Smith starts messaging me ever day from his community i leave and so does everyone else. Then bob smith relaises that he has wasted his patform for timely announcments.
The community will start to change to adapt tot his new innovation and the innovation will change too.
Matt, You have presented a very articulate and well-thoughtout response. I really appreciate your perspective that lends much to the conversation.
I certainly agree with you that MyBlogLog should move forward with innovation and make change in an evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary way, meaning rapid deployment of features that are tweaked along the way.
My basic thought with communication is that people are moving away from pushed information such as email newsletters or announcements to pulling information with feeds. When I want to communicate to my community of folks, why not post to my blog, post to Twitter which feeds to MyBlogLog or post a comment on my profile at MyBlogLog. Those engaged in the community will respond and a lively conversation ensues such as is taking place with this post. I greatly enjoy the fact that three times the number of comments have been generated on this blog to the number of posts. I try to write in such a way that opens a topic for conversation and often find the real value of the post in the dialog that follows.
Apart from direct contact messages, I find very few broadcast messages to have much real substance or value.
So, what would I do if I were advancing MyBlogLog?
1. Improve the feed process to shore-up the service to be more reliable and flexible. This is one area where BlogCatalog has them beat.
2. Provide a view of Communities I’ve joined. Quite often I don’t return to the community because I don’t remember joining unless I also added them as a contact.
3. Develop the micro-blogging concept or team with Twitter or Jaiku so that joining a community is more true to the concept by promoting dialog.
4. Work towards defining a community around a concept like thinking as opposed to a blog like thoughtsparks or thethinkingblog.
I define community as a group of folks who interact together. When cross-talk happens between folks, like within a forum or comment stream, an online community springs forth. If MyBlogLog were to ponder this deeper and encourage communities to develop as opposed to just launching more features, they will truly take it to the next level. Matt, what if you and I were co-authors or managers of a community at MyBlogLog that brought together traffic related to a couple of sites and when folks joined the communtiy, they were joining with common threads or interests?
However this evolves I’m confident MyBlogLog will continue to advance and develop this steller service to the blogosphere. I truly believe it is one of the most innovative web 2.0 initiatives.