Friday, January 23rd, 2009
You may have noticed a few small social changes that we’ve instituted for 2009:
Twitter. We’ve been quiet on this front for far too long.
While it won’t be all of us running the account, expect some solid updates from @nowsourcing and @thegypsy. Why follow? Well, we have some interesting things to say and will also be sharing great links collectively.
Google Friend Connect. You might call us Collective Forgetfulness if we didn’t have the latest and greatest blog widget from our friends at Google. So we’ve added Google Friend Connect. It’s an interesting concept, and will be fun to see what people make of it beyond the simple “here are the friends that like my site.”
MyBlogLog. You might say that this is old news, but we updated the MBL widget to the more sleek, iPhone looking UI. What’s really interesting about MBL is the community/site itself beyond the widget. Personally, I’ve liked the service for a long time because it allows you to visually see who your recent visitors are – a different crack at the data vs. a more 1’s and 0’s Google Analytics approach.
What about you – what have you done to make your blog more social for 2009?
Posted in Social Media | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
We at Collective Thoughts are big fans of the MyBlogLog service, and went out to interview Ian Kennedy, Product Manager for MyBlogLog at Yahoo. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, Ian.
1 – Tell us a little about your background, and how you’ve found the experience of being with Yahoo vs. running Product Development for MyBlogLog.
I got into blogging in 2003 when I was working at Dow Jones as a Product Manager. Blogging allowed me to reach out directly to my customers and get feedback on new features. I’ve been blogging ever since, and working with bloggers at MyBlogLog is a natural extension of my interests. I’ve been at Yahoo! for just over two years and joined the MyBlogLog team last summer after stints with Corporate Development and the Yahoo Publisher Network. Working with the MyBlogLog team has been great. I particularly enjoy the ability to release more often and try out new features. While a more established Yahoo! product with hundreds of millions of users may only do a release every couple of weeks, MyBlogLog usually does several minor releases a day while and we try and push out a user-facing feature once a week if possible.
2 – Mybloglog has been working on an API for months but have yet to release it. Could you give us a hint as to when is the API coming?
Thanks for asking. I know I sound like a broken record but our beta release is literally around the corner. We’ve been working with Yahoo Developer Network to ensure the API conforms to the highest quality standards. The good news is that we’re going to be ready to go with the invitation-only beta in January. If you’re interested in being considered for the beta, there will be an opportunity to submit an application in January when the beta is launched.
3 – Google’s OpenSocial has been all the rage lately, as far as social networking platforms go. Any plans to join the fray?
We’re looking at OpenSocial carefully and feel that we may potentially have a lot to contribute once the API is fully baked and OpenSocial has matured a bit. For one thing, as one of the few services out there that can map your various service identities together, MyBlogLog can bring a lot of value to developers. For example, via the “services” tab our users have the opportunity to share not only their delicious ID but also their YouTube ID. The API will allow you to look these up and cross reference them with each other which could be useful to any OpenSocial application looking for broader appeal.
4 – Any plans on including a way to have tagging related to content rather than a whole blog in the future?
Yes. That’s about all I can say at this time. Stay tuned!
5 – How has the migration from a small company to a department in a large global business that is Yahoo gone?
It’s been a balance of payoffs. On the one hand we can’t move quite as fast as we’d like, but on the other hand we now have MyBlogLog servers in two colos on each US coast. There’s been more overhead in code review, but at the same time we have at our fingertips all sorts of internal tools that have been built to help manage large, dynamic databases. MyBlogLog on its own moved quickly to gain attention from the innovator crowd; and Yahoo!’s core expertise is taking something innovative and re-packaging it for broader adoption by the mainstream so we feel like we’re set up for success.
6 – What, in your opinion, makes Mybloglog stand out from similar services? What is the value proposition for a blogger to install yet another widget in their sidebar given the vast landscape of products. Places like Blog Catalog come to mind.
Our focus for the past several months has been on infrastructure to make sure that MyBlogLog can scale to meet the needs of a Yahoo!-scale audience. To that end, existing users should notice that performance of our widgets has gotten better and some of the bumps of the past are gone. Secondly, we have now tied the MyBlogLog login with Yahoo!’s login so each MyBlogLog account will automatically be associated with a Yahoo! ID. This will allow us to do some useful things going forward like making your MyBlogLog profile information available for use elsewhere on the Yahoo! network and make any Yahoo!-specific information available to the MyBlogLog community. In both cases the options for personalization of our users’ experience should improve.
7 – What plans if any do you have to expand your premium services such as stats?
We have no plans to extend the existing solution, but we are looking forward to using the API to make stats more broadly available on other platforms. We think it’d be cool to see your stats in a desktop widget or via your cellphone, which would make premium features such as intraday stats that much more compelling.
8 – How does MyBlogLog get its message out to users and has the channels of communication changed now they are part of Yahoo?
Our channels are pretty much the same as before. We primarily use our blog but also use other Yahoo-specific channels such as the corporate blog and we also printed up a bunch of stickers to hand out to people we meet. The world tour and guest appearence on Good Morning America have been put on hold for the moment 
9 – We used to love the monthly updates in MBL growth during the early days, how many members, how many widgets installed, and widget displays – will we ever see such openness again in the future?
Sure. We have over 350,000 members with our widgets consistently generating over 19M daily impressions. The number of widgets installed is an internal stat we’re not sharing at this time.
10 – Do you think Mybloglog reached its critical mass in terms of growth?
No. I think we’re still a pretty niche product. There’s no real reason to use MyBlogLog unless you have a website. We have a number of features in the hopper that will change that and make MyBlogLog interesting for anyone who uses the web on a regular basis, which we think will lead to broader adoption.
11 – Many people reacted critically to the broadcast feature how has MyBlogLog policed this feature and should they be the ones policing?
We did two things related to messaging – back in June, we enabled the ability to message all members of your community, which is the controversial feature to which I think you’re referring. By giving our users the power to message their entire community we may have opened the door to compulsive messagers that feel the need to tell everyone they know about everything they learn. In the end, the controls that allow people to get these updates are in our user’s hands. If you don’t want to get these messages via email, then you can turn off email updates. If you don’t want to get these messages period and feel that they do not bring any value to you, then, just as you would remove an RSS feed from your reader, you need to re-consider the benefits of being connected to such a chatterbox anyway. We have not resorted to heavy-handedness in managing the messages as we think joining or leaving a community should be feedback enough to keep all but the most egregious offenders at bay.
(Note that there if anyone has any thoughts on what they would like to see on MyBlogLog in the future, there is a suggestion area on Yahoo to leave feedback.)
Posted in Interviews | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Last night, before sitting down to power through some serious social media activity, it really hit me.
I told myself that I need to blog something because my Alexa rank was slipping.
Alexa Rank?? What??? Am I insane???
When I started looking at my latest blogging performance, I noticed that my posts have been much shorter lately on social media. Much less than when I would primarily write about blogging tips and starting a blog.
Then, I started to look at some of my daily social media activities:
- Reading RSS feeds of my favorite blogs (I hate RSS, even full feed – but they are a necessary evil. Still, I try to actually read blogs that I like)
- Finding interesting content
- Submitting interesting content
- Checking stats
- Friending people on MyBlogLog
- Responding to my own comments
- IM conversations with people all over the globe (read: no sleep if I wanted to talk to all of them all the time)
- Write a few posts (some start to finish, some partial thoughts) and coming up with post ideas
- Prepare for blog interviews
- Submit stories to several social networks
- Save bookmarks on del.icio.us
- Stumble some sites
- Sphinn some stories
- Comment on other blogs
- Perpetuate poke, superpoke, vampire, and slayer wars on Facebook
- Ask others for Sphinn votes. (No, scratch that)
- Twittering, since everyone wants to know up to the minute details about my cat? Newsflash: I don’t have a cat.
Wow, all these activities are really fragmenting. Not super time consuming, as you can multitask, but fragmenting. Like 20 tabs up in Firefox and other apps all over the place fragmenting.
Can we really multitask as well as we think? Kathy Sierra, one of my favorite bloggers ever, would argue that we cannot multitask effectively. (By the way Kathy, if you read this – please, please return to blogging. The world needs you).
So, does this mean that I’m out of the social media space? No way! In fact, expect to see much more from me social media wise very soon
What’s the plan then, you ask? Easy. Instead of suffering from social media overload, look at a few other disciplines and tips for help:
1 – Focus. Getting hit from different IM’s, especially from offline ones when first signing in can really send you off in different directions. Actually turn off IM once in a while. I’ve tried this off and on over the last week or so, and some people were actually concerned
2 – Sleep. Whenever I get tired, but always wake up at the same time (for me, this is 6am). I first saw this on Evan Williams’ blog but it’s originally from Steve Pavlina
3 – Balance. Whether you have a physical / sports, religious / spiritual, art, or whatever outlet – use it. I’m personally a very religious person, and am glad that I am.
4 – Stop talking about social media to people that don’t care about it. Try not to talk everyone’s ear off about social media that isn’t in the space. My apologies to all family and friends that still don’t know what I do, but see that I’m clearly excited about it You know that guy that walks around with the hands free that looks like he’s talking to himself? Annoying, right? Don’t be him.
5 – Family time. Whether you’re an 18 year old social media pro or someone with a wife and kids, your family likes you. Walk away from the computer for a few minutes. You might notice that your kids have grown since you last looked at them
6 – Cross pollinate your brain. Find something opposite of social media to do for a while to let the social media parts of your brain recharge. You’re an SEO? Go do SEO (non-social media) work for your clients. You’re a zookeeper? Well, feed those seals already. They can’t live on Diggs alone! Learn some new skills or enhance ones that you already have.
7 – Unplug. Do something that’s not in front of the computer (since you’ll be tempted to Stumble it if it is something good). Read a book, watch a movie, do some knitting, cook, eat, play a game, jump out of a plane – whatever. A friend of mine even went so far as to go into an underwater cage where folks from above throw food down so that Great White Sharks try to get into your cage. He says it’s a rush, but I think I’ll read a book.
It’s fine to engage in social media snacking. Just don’t lose sight that life is the main course.
Posted in Productivity | 48 Comments »
