Share Your Blog
I’ve been meaning to write this entry for a while but have been struggling with exactly what I want to say and how to say it. Anyhow, basically the point is I want to give something back to all you readers and I want to make this place feel a little more like a community.
One idea I had is to feature the blogs of commenters/readers more prominently on the site. I’ve also thought about aggregating posts from your sites (assuming you all agreed) and displaying them here. Obviously I need to work out some details, but just wanted to throw out the idea and get some opinions, thoughts and ideas.
I figure eventually this will require me writing some code and redesigning the site, but for now I would like to feature a few posts every week from your blogs. So in the comments or an email I’d really appreciate if you posted a link to a post on your site you’d like people to read. Don’t feel self-conscious or anything like that (I know normally I feel a little weird about posting links to my site in comments).
I’ll then update this post or add a new one with the links.
Is this a good idea? Has anyone else been thinking about this sort of thing? I know 9rules has its widgets and MyBlogLog helps with the community portion, but I’m not really a widget sort of guy (I like to control every pixel plus I hate the load time).
Anyway, just an idea . . . We’ll see if anyone’s in to it.
Hi, I'm 
awesome idea. I think a recent readable blog of mine would be that one I did on a typewriter. I still want to do something with you about that topic!
That was a great post. (For everyone else: typewritten.) Also enjoyed state schemas, need to think some more about that.
You don’t have to actually have the mybloglog widget ; my community operated for a long time without the widget on my blog (a month or so ago I added it at the end of the blog, where I’m not sure anyone gets to except new readers…)
Noah, I like the idea a lot. Some of the aggregated sites you see here and there at the web feels a little too un-personal, but by doing/sharing like you are proposing by adding posts from your readers mixed up between the regular posts, it will be much more interesting. By doing this people will read (even more) interesting posts and the different post writers will reach a wider audience. And of course you could get something published at their blogs as well at the same time. Feels like a great win-win situation!
Candice, do you find that the MyBlogLog javascript slows down your site? I used to have it but eventually bagged it because it was bothering me.
David, glad you like the idea. I agree, it seems like a win-win. Any ideas on how you’d do it? Should I just pull in all the posts from people? How do I decide whose posts to pull?
The javascript has been fine, I’ve got tracking stuff at the very tail end of the pages, though, in general. Occasionally the widget will hang for a minute while it fetches pictures.
It may get faster now that they have been acquired, as well. At some point they will move onto yahoo servers, I would assume.
I wouldn’t mind being part of the Noah ™ blog network at some point. I just hope you don’t charge people for the opportunity… Interesting comment about the larger aggregated sites being un-personal. While that is true I’d never really considered that before.
I like the idea too. Sometimes blogs seems like one person just having a monologue with themselves which kind of defeats the purpose of a blog. A blog is a conversation and is a place to exchange ideas and form a community. It would be really cool to have as Michael says, a Noah Blog Network……a virtual likeminds :) I am not a computer person I just love my mac and know how to do the things I need to but if it could be worked out I think it would be creating a really interesting “community” and then people would be learning about other blogs too and expanding their circle.
Noah, here are some suggestions:
-when you see a good post that A; fits perfectly or B; is out of the box in a nice way, just ask if you could swap posts
-ask a couple of readers/friends if they would like to send in interesting posts
-thinking…
Great idea. It’s like an old school “webring,” only it doesn’t smell like 1996.
It seems like the type of thing that could be built using feeds. For example, you could have a category or tag associated with whatever post you wanted to make public on Noah’s blog, and (hopefully) set up a feed that looks at it’s posts. Then, submit your feed url to Noah, and there could be something set up to parse the content. It would, however, mean a little extra bit of code on everyone’s blog, which is unfortunate…
I know MyBlogLog has load issues. Would totally prefer it to be text, actually. Anyway, they do have one neat feature you could try to mimic. “What’s hot in my communities” – it features posts from communities (blogs) that you belong to that have high click rates.
I am not sure how to determine what is hot without a lot of invasive stats tracking, but one way is to increase the profile of the blogger who comments a lot to a higher position in the ‘hot’ community, or to increase the feed profile of a feed that was getting a lot of off-clicks from being included in your site.
As usual Noah you’re looking for ways to connect people in ways that are interesting and informative.
I have felt part of a noah network already as the comments that are posted on the right hand side have the feel of a conversation. I get your posts sent to my email and then I click back to the site so I can read it and look at the comments – and sometimes add my own.
I’ll support anything that enhances interesting conversations and promise to get started on my lizbiz blog soon – so that one day maybe I’ll see something I’ve written on your site.
Well done mate.
Excellent idea. If I ever write anything that’s not completely self-indulgent (and therefore worthy of sharing), I’ll let you know.
Hmm…sounds pretty cool. Kinda like having guest authors contribute remotely. Sign me up.
It’s a good idea. I’m not too widgety since I am still on WP.com, but hey, if it works. I hate long load times as well though.
Blogs are about community, for sure.
I’m finally delurking to say that I like your idea (and reading your blog). I’ve “met” so many amazing people and been part of many conversations, and I’m interested in your community link experiment.
My jury is still out on MyBlogLog. Main reason: it’d freak me out to see a picture of myself on every web site I visit that has it. I think text linking is the way to go.
Hi there,
I have a blog which I’ve just put up and I was wondering if I could share it with your other readers. It’s a motivational / success blog, if you are interested please take a look.
Thanks a lot for the opportunity!
Tyson
Here’s a link to a very sweet poem on my blog that helped me through our pregnancy loss and the year it took us to conceive again:
“For Those of You Hoping or Trying to Conceive”