Monday, March 26, 2007

Is MyBlogLog Losing Its Buzz?

Don't get me wrong, I really dig MyBlogLog, the simple and stripped down social networking tool for bloggers with the killer app widget that lets you see and interact with the readers who visit your site.

But I'm wondering if the buzz is wearing off. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the activity level on the site has subsided considerably since the admittedly recent days when blogger-fueled hype was high and the announcement of MBL's acquisition by Yahoo! was making the rounds.

Certainly for several months it seemed as though there was a lot of activity on the site itself. I received friend requests frequently for example (see my profile here without doing much to earn the honor, and it was easy to tell just by clicking around that many people were discovering and making use of the site's features. I'm not getting that sense of late. My activity level on the site is about the same, but the number of friend requests and messages has dropped considerably.

Perhaps even more telling is that I haven't read anything about MyBlogLog in a while (this Technorati chart is a bit inconclusive, I must admit). Could it be that the early adopter crowd has incorporated MBL into ho hum everyday online life and moved on? I'm guilty myself, having caught the Twitter wave and am very much fixating on that particular e-vortex as the latest-greatest thing.

While Alexa rankings must be taken with a grain of salt, it shows that MBL traffic has leveled off. It's still ahead of Twitter, though it's close now!

I still appreciate and love MyBlogLog's best feature: I get to see the faces (or avatars, or artistic representations) of some of the people who stop by my site.

I'd love to see what other people think: what's the deal with MyBlogLog these days?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the buzz has died down until they add more features. Being able to filter your contacts and send messages to groups (like when you have something to show off) would be useful. It's a little too primitive now and more than a little spammy.

Even still, people like Dan over at http://thewrongadvices.com/ have used it well to build an audience quickly.

Staff said...

Yes, I think you're right, sprague. Personally, while I love to connect with other bloggers, I run out of things to do while I'm on the site. Once you add someone as a friend or add a site to your list of communities, there's very little reason to revisit those lists except to add to them in some form of friend-hoarding.

Anonymous said...

I've been on MBL for a while now and am a little tired of the spammy messages and avatars.

MBL seems a little one-dimensional to me. Maybe it's just the design, though?

Anonymous said...

As a matter of fact, I just dropped their tracking code from my site in favor of Google Analytics (I had removed the Recent Visitors widget awhile ago because I found it was leading readers away from my site, which offset any benefit in attracting other bloggers that it provided).

MBL is a good idea, just a bit half-baked. Let's see what the Yahoos do with it.

Staff said...

Eric F. - While I've heard about and seen a little of the spam, it hasn't really bothered me.

Likewise, sprague, the tracking code has always been an afterthought in my opinion. I'm a fan of site meter and while it has had some problems of late I think it's a pretty solid overall state tracker.

The design of the site also doesn't bother me -- I actually like the stripped down simplicity.

I'm actually still a big fan of MBL and want to see it do well. I absolutely the wordpress plug-in that puts thumbnail profile pics right into the comments. Wish I could do that on Blogger! (Actually there's a big change for DB coming up which I'm VERY excited about...)

Thanks for the great comments!

Anonymous said...

One thing the MBL Recent Readers widget does is make me seem a lot more popular than I really am!

Consider me subscribed - I'll look forward to seeing what the upcoming changes are.

Staff said...

That is a great part about the MBL widget, isn't it! (he says knowingly...)

Dumpster Bust's RSS should carry over to the new site -- things are moving very swiftly now and we may be up and running over there as soon as tomorrow.

Staff said...

And thanks Eric F. -- look forward to seeing you over at Online Media Cultist!

Anonymous said...

Great explanation…my Friend was asking me what twitter is!