I’ m a relatively new blogger and have been experimenting with sites like Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Mad. The idea behind these sites are good but need better guidelines. On Blog Mad I took my time and read through around 40 blogs. I didn’t just wait for the timer and hit enter, I actually read as much as I felt was fair. When I was finished I noticed the top blogger of the day had read 788 blogs! That is impossible even if you clicked to the next blog dead nuts when the countdown ended. This guy’s blog had but 2 comments on all of his 146 posts!
We should all be willing to give a little to help each other out more than a light “once over” and click. If someone reviews your site you should in turn go out of your way to review theirs. If someone leaves a nice comment, go read their blog and leave a comment in return.
To me, blogging is really about the writing, not how many numbers you have. Some people have 50,000 visits yet probably only 30 of those visitors actually read anything. I would rather have 10 people actually read my posts than 500 skim through them. Now there are certain circumstances where there’s not much to read, like a blog of all pictures or tiny reviews of every laptop ever made, etc. Some of these can be enjoyable, though most blogs are aimless or ridiculous.
I reviewed 35 blogs on Blog Explosion one night and no one reviewed mine. I did this for a week and still I was not reviewed. I actually logged in under my other account and reviewed my own blog! Besides just surfing blogs, members should be randomly chosen to review a blog AND write comments on a minimum of five posts even if they have no interest in the content.
I decided to quit Blog Mad because something shady was obviously going on. I still use Blog Explosion and Blog Soldiers for the time being and with time I will get some positive results. The amount of different general categories is too small as my blog for instance falls in around seven categories but is tied into a few central governing motifs. I see tons of blogs that are multi-genre concepts and to write only on one strict category can be very boring for a lot of us.
Finally, my name is Bobby Revell and if anyone reviews or writes a constructive comment on my blog, I will return the favor! So review some blogs this week even if you aren’t interested in the content and lets all help out a little of everybody!!!!!
