My friend and PR professional Alan Weinkrantz did a yeoman’s job of giving my a break a few days back when I was struggling, so I feel I owe him a look-see at his new client, Blog Catalog. (Note to other PR types: Alan built a relationship with me well before he needed it, and so when he asks for things, I try to be helpful where I can.) >>Side note: Alan - please don’t make me have to get an account to comment on your blog. It keeps me from commenting there.
BlogCatalog is a social network for bloggers. The features on the site involve profiles, discussion lists, groups, a directory, some widgets, and I think that’s all (ish). If I had to guess what the site hopes I do most, it’s engage in discussions with bloggers. There’s also a directory, which would help folks (like PR and marketer types) find which types of bloggers signed in.
Okay, truth: I didn’t see any bloggers I know. Not a one. But hey, it’s not like I know *everyone*, and I’m not knocking on the folks who have an account there. I do. I’m also not sure what I want to talk about there, but here’s a sample of the discussion:
There’s something there in those discussions, and it could well be a very helpful space for bloggers looking for advice and support. But my knock is that I want there to be groupings around the threads. Everything’s all willy nilly, and I couldn’t really find a topic that engaged me right off the bat without a little digging. If it were broken into categories of discussions, I could skip threads about love and pictures of babies, and move into the topics I might want to discuss.
If you’re a blogger, it wouldn’t hurt to go there, get an account, list your blog there, build up a profile (yet again), and look around a bit. If you’re looking to do blogger outreach, there’s something useful there. Beyond that? I’m not so sure.
Are you there? What’s your take?
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I think established high ranking bloggers, won’t really get much out of it. They’re already popular and have a dedicated base anyway.
But for new bloggers, and those of us, who aren’t popular. I think Blogcatalog can be useful to drive a bit of traffic to your site and maybe getting some new readers.
I’m on it and overall I’m happy with it.
So far, in my opinion, BlogCatalog has taken a back seat in awareness and usage to MyBlogLog. I have an account on both, and BlogCatalog is easily forgotten.
See both here:
http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/louisgray
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/louismg/
As you commented on FriendFeed before, you were asking “where’s the innovation”, and do we need more than one site that does the same thing? This would probably fall into that same category.
In general I like blog catalog, but unless things have changed, it loads very slowly.
Blog catalog is a great resource for new bloggers and a great place to build and leverage your social media footprint. I have expanded all my social media accounts through BC and have used it to leverage traffic to my blog and help others build traffic.
A cursory look at it does it no justice.
“Big bloggers” use it such as Andy Beard… and well… I mean I am no slouch.
The thing is people get stuck in their online social circles, this site offers good way to break out of your circle and expand into different ones. You just need to pull your head out of friendfeed and stop talking with the same people in the same groups to do it.
I signed up for BlogCatalog when I first created my blog, and I’ve been getting some spammy messages through it from people who are just looking for links to their blogs.
i second your aside, about sign-up to comment, i am out of there immediately
I thought Blogging was the blogger’s social network? Hence the many linkbacks and the commenting culture. Well, blogging and friendfeed… By the way, I reactivated my Twitter account and am using it as suggested, with friendfeed. Wow, I actually enjoy the service now, it has a purpose! Thanks for the post.
I’ve been on BlogCatalog for almost a year, which is how long I’ve been blogging. It has consistently generated relevant traffic- people who are interested and stay to read my pages. There has also been some vigorous discussion on BlogCatalog, adding to its social nature and allowing groups to form effectively. Even blogs I’m currently neglecting get a stream of readers from BlogCatalog (I’ve held of on fiction reviews in favor of the environment for a while now). I’m there on BlogCatalog as chemrat- come on down and visit, one and all.
Thanks for the very useful posts!
Hi Chris,
I have an account on Blog Catalog that’s quite inactive. I just did it when the site was really new and some said it would be much better than MyBlogLog where I was also quite quiet. Whenever a blogger adds me as a friend, I am notified and go check their profiles. I did discover some interesting blogs this way, but I haven’t tried out much else.
Alina
Let me re-state that I think there’s value here. I’d tweak it a bit, but there’s value in what people are doing.
Chris -
Excellent cross-section of BC; this was the first site I joined when I launched my blog. The site is a great place to learn the ‘ways of the land’ of SN sites w/regards to making contacts, building relationships and contributing valuable content.
I found that after a while, it was very difficult to use, as Chris pointed out in his analysis.
I would still urge bloggers to join BC. The status updates and network visibility are nice features to help expand your footprint.
Sounds like a good place form a starter band. And, it maybe a good way to experiment and practice dealing with stage fright.
I have an account with BC and also an account with MyBlogLog. I really don’t understand how to use either one. I can see the potential in being able to network with other bloggers, but I don’t really see how to leverage that.
I get a lot of Broadcasts (spam?) from BC from people who want me to check out their blogs and MyBlogLog is pretty silent for the most part.
I think it goes back to what Chris says. It’s hard to find stuff on these sites that I want to engage in without doing some digging and I’m just not sure if it’s worth it.
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/rahsheen/
http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/rahsheen
I have been using Blogcatalog for several years off and on. I think that if you use it consistently, you can actually get some good traffic out of it, and meet some groovy bloggers.
It also has some good advertising opportunities. Sponsoring a category in the directory gives you a pretty good link.
Thanks, I hadn’t heard of this before so I just created an account.
Considering that there are now so many social networks catering to such a wide range of niches, my biggest problem is finding ones relevant to me and related to my specific interests or product niches. Google seems to be inefficient and returns alot of irrelevant results. A good resource that I use to find them is this search engine for social networking sites.
Chris,
Thanks for posting about BlogCatalog and for starting this useful discussion about it’s value.
BlogCatalog is a member driven community and the BlogCatalog discussions are designed to be the water cooler/town hall area of the site, where all kinds of bloggers, from rockstars to mainstream bloggers, from mom bloggers to doctor bloggers, can quickly connect, ask questions, engage each other — with the one common element being that each person in the discussions is a blogger.
Because the discussions flow fast and there are over 130,000 bloggers in BlogCatalog it’s easy to feel that you don’t know anyone. Though, post a question and within seconds you’ll have an answer and opinions from incredibly smart and funny bloggers with many different perspectives.
What can Blogcatalog do? Before I read this article, I had no idea. Now I maybe need to register somewhere.
I am a member of BC and have been for a while, it’s great for networking and really works for blog promotion, IF you reach out, make friends and network with other bloggers.
Thanks,
JR
Yeah but Chris you looked at it for what 15 minutes? Glad you see there is value and you’d want to make changes but did you get a feeling how the community actually works? How to leverage it? How to use their social stream which was actually launched before people were even really using friend feed?
The thing is there is like a web 2.0 “elite” that all use the same tools, converse with the same people, and don’t look out the little box they are in. Blog catalog is ripe for so many things and any blogger can use it to expand their natural network, they just need to look at it for more than a couple of minutes.
Hi Kevin- Blog Catalog isn’t a bad place. It’s a place. It’s somewhere people can have discussions. If the people are good and motivated, the discussions are good. From what I saw, there were some great topics on the go.
I’m not crapping on it, nor do I consider myself elite (meet me and you’ll get that sense for yourself).
Enjoy it. : )
I’ve been on BlogCatalog for a while, but I find that I don’t log in too often. While it’s a good place to list your sites, I find them a little disorganized. Topics are hard to find, unless you do a search, and they’re often very repetitive/spammy. I’ve found that my traffic hasn’t increased that much since I joined.
But it might just be me.