In my various travels around in the interweb and hop-scotching I came across a relatively new social networking site geared towards bloggers; BlogCatalog.
Now a lot of people out there in the blogosphere use MyBlogLog but it does have its limitations and they might be a little behind in making their site more of a community than just a bunch of avatars and links to each other’s blogs. This is where BlogCatalog fills in; they seem to have the mindset for developing a community for bloggers.
Upon your first visit to BlogCatalog you will be shown a featured Blog, random BlogCatalog users, various tags or categories and more information that will make your little blogger heart race with anticipation!
One thing I do like about BlogCatalog that MyBlogLog does not have is a Discussion section. It is similar to a forum (in fact it is a forum) where members of BlogCatalog can start various topics and have other members reply. What is the point of this? Well if it doesn’t belong on your blog but you want other opinions why not start a topic that people can reply to? It can be also a good resource for bloggers about blogging because I have yet to find one central site that offers a forum for bloggers to ask questions and help answer questions in a nice threaded sort of way.
Like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog has the ability to share multiple Blogs that you author, Friends can favorite you by joining your community, you can see your recent viewers and you have a shout-box. What is different though is people can rate your individual blogs and also leave comments about your individual listed blogs. It will also list blogs that might be similar to yours which I think is an interesting feature if you’re curious what other people are doing.
Now what can you do as a blog owner to show your support for BlogCatalog? Well you can create a Recent Visitor widget for your site, much like MyBlogLog. Now the question is: Will you display both BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog? Or will you favor one over the other? At this time I might use both but for now I will stick to MyBlogLog because I have not had any visitors with BlogCatalog.
Now this post has been quite short in going into depth with the features of BlogCatalog, but I believe it is something that you should experience and decided which one you like best. I can’t tell you which one is truly better, but it seems that there is more development going on with BlogCatalog than there is with MyBlogLog and I personally like the feel and usability of BlogCatalog better than that of MyBlogLog.
When I have more experience with BlogCatalog I will be sure to report back and perhaps go a little more in-depth in what they have to offer bloggers as a social networking service.
DamienMay 16, 2007 at 11:39:16
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Thanks for that. I thought it was an older service? Maybe not. I haven’t even explored mybloglog much other than putting an avatar up. Maybe in time I will explore it as well as blogcatalog. Part of my blog hobby is reading about extended services, thanks again for shining a light on this one.
Tyler IngramMay 16, 2007 at 12:14:47
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It could be older.. I only recently learnt about it the other day so to me its pretty new
LeoMay 16, 2007 at 19:19:00
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I only participate with MBL, the only thing stopping me from trying out Blog Catalog is that they require quite a bit of real estate on the site to participate.
Brett EvansMay 17, 2007 at 19:59:35
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I have seen a few people have it on their websites but haven’t really look into it much.
I have mybloglog on my site. The only benefit I use it for is the fact I can personally see who visit my sites and what interest they have. That is about all I use it for.
Thanks for the insight to blog catalog!
ElaineMay 18, 2007 at 05:34:14
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Well I joined it last night, haven’t really had time to look it over closely. Thanks for your input and will look forward to your more “in depth” reports
TaurusMay 18, 2007 at 06:52:29
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Cool! Thanks for the info. I found out about MyBlogLog here at your site and now you give me this little gem. Much appreciated.
I check out BlogCatalog and then pop back and let you know what I think.
Tyler IngramMay 18, 2007 at 07:35:48
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Leo: If you mean that their requirements to join are a bit high, I received an email saying that I had plenty of posts and that they approved me on that. Odd huh?
Brett Evans: BlogCatalog has the same similar Widget to show who’s recently visited your site, actually it looks the exactly the same.
Elaine: I hope to look more into BlogCatalog to see if does differ from MyBlogLog but is very similar.
Taurus: I’d be glad to hear what you think of BlogCatalog when you get into it a bit more!
Thanks for the comments