MyBlogLog adds MySpace support
Steve Poland
52 comments »
As 2006 closes in, my favorite web service of the year is MyBlogLog. Despite Yahoo! acquisition rumors a few weeks ago, the company is still privately-held. If I were in the web M&A business, they’d top my list along with music social networking service Last.fm.
MyBlogLog has built the next generation social networking service. If Friendster/MySpace/etc are v1.0 of social networking websites, this is v2.0. The service has created a distributed social networking platform — allowing websites and blogs to enable social networking amongst their community of visitors.
Today, MyBlogLog has added support for MySpace profile pages. This is a way for them to infiltrate the MySpace market. MySpace pretty much offers what MyBlogLog has, except MyBlogLog has 2 things MySpace lacks:
- MyBlogLog will show you who recently visited your webpage (only other MyBlogLog users) — this comes in handy for the curious cats that like to know who’s viewing their profile.
- MyBlogLog is a distributed social networking system that allows you to communicate with not just users of MySpace, but users visiting thousands of other blogs/websites on the web.
How it works is that you create an account with MyBlogLog, grab a snippet of code, place that code in your MySpace profile, and then you can see what other MyBlogLog users visit your website.
The only qualm I have with the MyBlogLog service is the company name — it pigeon holes their business to blogs. In all reality, they should have partners such as NHL.com, NYTimes, and Slashdot — websites with communities of users that would love to learn more about each other and message each other. In my opinion, every website should have MyBlogLog — it allows your users to interact with one-another and builds community. I’m waiting to hear about the first marriage that happens as a result of MyBlogLog enabling two users to meet each other on a website that both had regularly visited for years, but never had a means of learning about each other (or other visitors of that website).
A couple months ago, I exchanged messages through MyBlogLog with CEO Scott Rafer, whom told me they have been looking for an alternative domain — do you have a suggestion Scott and his team?
Editor’s Note: This post was written by Steve Poland, a guest contributor. Steve is the founder and web strategy consultant for Vested Ventures, a firm specializing in website consulting, internet marketing, and high-end custom web development.
Well, this certainly increases the size of their target market.
This is perfect for MySpace and even Digg or YouTube Profile Pages
MyBlogLog REALLY has a future, they are really trying to stand out.
Their Engineers border on being brilliant - —–
Love it.
They offer some of best web widgets online.
It’s a great community!!!!!!!!!!!
As a blogger, I LOVE MyBlogLog … but I think they have a long way to go before becoming mainstream (at least outside the blogging world). I just don’t see teens using it yet, which really drove the MySpace popularity.
But then who knows, a girl I worked with just had to return her 70 year old grandmother’s new computer because the grandma got so addicted to MySpace. I guess the social networking scene is evolving.
I agree, they have a lot of great widgets. Anita is right as well, the teen population really hasn’t picked it up yet. I think that’s natural - they’re still not trying to push or market their blogs or sites yet, like those a few years older do.
“Well, this certainly increases the size of their target market.”
I suppose you speaking for teens, and as I have look around there are only a few that use MyBlogLog, and I think that JUST adding MySpace field will not increasing the target…
“The only qualm I have with the MyBlogLog service is the company name …”
The only qualm I have with the MyBlogLog is their lack of customer service. I don’t understand why these so called web2.0 startups do a public launch if they cannot handle customer service.
Never used the service but I do think all the blogging sites have something which the others do not have when shall we havea site which has all the features afall these sites. The best of all worlds. I think even the best blogging sites like blogger,Xanga et al can improve their offering.
Not being harsh.
But Dil ( Heart In Hindi ) Mange More ( Wants More).
I registered there, and joined Techcrunch community, but can’t leave message to michael…
mybloglog…adding social networking to any web page…very cool, if done in an open, standards based way.
btw i wouldn’t change the domain at this point!
This is a brilliant feature addition. Blogs are one thing, but MySpace is the mass market! or …. “promised land” exit strategy depending on how you want to view it.
FYI, Stan James hacked this exact solution a couple of weeks ago. Read this: http://wanderingstan.com/2006-.....idget_hack
I agree with Matthew!
Leave the name alone. You don’t see Yahoo changing their name to “The worlds first Portal.com”
I also think Google dropped the ball here. By letting Yahoo get MyBlogLog, they lost an exceptionally easy to use, popular resource for bloggers.
Derek:
Speaking of Google, I bet that MyBlogLog works on Blogger.com now too. I mean if it works on MySpace, Blogger should be easy…
Steve, I don’t think that MyBlogLog needs to change their name to be useful to traditional non-blog oriented Web sites. For example, the NY Times already has blogs so using a “blog community” would not be that foreign of a concept.
David Henderson, I was told (by a third party) that MBL didn’t implement Stan’s *exact* idea. (And now that I’ve written it down, I should probably go and try to verify that.)
My nitpicky URL branding suggestion for MyBlogLog would be to start using subdomains for the users and communities. So, instead of http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/.....leverhack/ you’d have http://cleverhack.mybloglog.com.
As for the popularity of MyBlogLog, I’ve been actively using it since late October and it has been a trip in terms of *increasing* readership. I’ve gotten new readers, great feedback and plenty of hotties reading the blog. (I tease, I tease.)
The More the Better
how about MIMIMOB.COM
meaning my mob as in a mob(crowd)
I have always said the name has to go. I will give them my neutral and fun domains bugzug.com or unojuno.com if they will use it. Other ideas should convey a “who stopped by” kind of feeling…footprints or something like that
I think that it would be unfortunate for Yahoo to acquire it because it doesn’t align with Yahoo’s culture right now. Google has Yahoo backed up against the ropes and Yahoo is trying to buy innovation as opposed to change the company culture back to innovation. Just look at some of the other acquisitions that Yahoo has made recently. Most have gone from promising and innovative to settling into mediocrity. Why? Yahoo has lost it’s purpose.
If Yahoo did acquire it, it is because they are desperately trying to stay afloat. Their intention is not to incorporate and integrate it into their values for the purpose of creating powerful change in the online world.
Need more proof? Just look at Yahoo’s pitiful, cookie cutter, mission and values. Now Look at ,a href=”http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html>Google’s
Bottom line, I think that Yahoo would douse the flames.
I use Myspace and I see a lot of friends sending me spam for sites that will allow you to set up something to see who visits your profile. The spam always leads you to a site with a billion popups but people click anyway.
People on MySpace want this feature and now that it is available I wouldn’t be surprised if this takes off more then the founders of mybloglog can handle.
Myspace/Newscorp would actually be really smart to buy this. All news sites should actually implement this across their networks and allow for an individual to turn the feature on or off. But it should be offered by default. MyBlogLog should create an API to allow for a hook from sites that want to build it in as a default.
I just tried to add this on myspace, but had no luck because it took the script code out automatically. Perhaps I am missing something? I have a music page and tried to put it in the bio section…
There is also a similar widget product/service at http://www.wHooiz.com
Robert Scoble has a profile there!
here an example of the blog widget
http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/
@ startups.in/India — We work very hard on our customer service. How did you try and contact us that we didn’t respond quickly and well? What was the problem and has it been solved?
@Denver — The “Leave a Message” link doesn’t work for you? Here’s a link to leave a message for the whole community: http://community.techcrunch.co.....2013300934
and here’s a link to leave one directly on the TechCrunch editor profile:
http://community.techcrunch.co.....2013300934
Please let me know if it doesn’t work for some reason. Both are used all the time.
@Noel — Our standard widgets are Javascript-based and don’t work on MySpace. We had to build a specific widget for their system that is html and jpeg only, which unfortunately leads to some confusion. If you just cut and paste the javascript from your blog widget into myspace it will not work. You specifically need to set up a “Site I Author” using a myspace.com URL. The widgets page for that site is different and gives you the special myspace widget which should work fine. if you already did that and found some other bug, pls let me know.
My bloglog…is great if you have a blog of your own…i just really got into it yesterday added my pic and screen name Fashion Industry Ceo and started receiving friends.
Yes…not thrilled with the name. Its almost a tongue twister and as one of my friends from another Forum that I visit would say…”it fails the radio test”.
What about:
GabbingandGrooving.com
Think about it…this name imo perfectly describes a Social Networking site.
http://www.revafinancial.squarespace.com
Scott, thanks for responding. I sent emails in response to the following message but haven’t seen any response.
“Get Branded Community: If you would like to get your own branded community with MyBlogLog, contact us at info@mybloglog.com“
@ Startups. We’re forming a queue for that feature which isn’t broadly available yet. Clearly, we haven’t explained the situation well enough. Thanks for pointing it out.
Joy — we’ll do you one better than that. We’re cranking hard to get custom communities out the door. Soon, you’ll be able to have your own Cleverhack-branded version of MyBlogLog at community.cleverhack.com (see http://community.techcrunch.com for an example).
Startup — we’re going to set up an autoresponse email that provides more info about the custom communities. As Scott said, thanks for the callout. We do the bulk of our improvements based upon member comments (public or private).
I have a great name for mybloglog:
faceloop.com
We have plans to build it out…but we have not started…if Scott and the mybloglog team thinks this domain is a good fit…contact me.
I’ve been quite impressed with MyBlogLog. Nice work Scott
(I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m a bit envious of what Scott has created and that I wish I had the same technology on my own site.)
Thanks Scott & Eric for explaining the situation. Appreciate it. Yes, at least an auto-response with the current status would have helped.
Anyhow, I’ve no more qualms now.
Will watch out for the news. Thanks again.
mybloglog is terrible at rsponding to questions for information from its customers.. althought i love the product
Idanieldigital — what are we late in responding to?
Mon piczo!!!
i want a myspace that wors and that my email donsesnt have to be required..