Alanweinkrantz | chrisbrogan.com

BlogCatalog- A Social Network for Bloggers

July 29, 2008

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:

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?