Agog over MyBlogLog

Honolulu socialite, photographer, blogger, podcaster, and executive headhunter Christa Wittmier declared MyBlogLog her "new most favorite thing. Ever." She evangelized the site in a post at HawaiiThreads, where many (myself in particular) tend to breathlessly exhort the latest and greatest web widget.

Oddly enough, I recognized the name thanks to a bit of recent gossip, later proven false, that Yahoo! was going to buy them for a few bazillion dollars. And it had caught my eye only because I once owned BLOGLOG.COM, and let it go just last year for... well, less than a bazillion dollars.

Anyway, since Christa gave Twitter a shot based on my recommendation, I figured I'd try and see what got her so excited about MyBlogLog. And, as it turns out, it is a pretty interesting concept.

Now, MyBlogLog has no doubt captured the attention of bloggers because it has that whole "social networking" thing going on (collecting friends is a tried and true web nerd passtime), but also offers all kinds of fancy widgets and badges and JavaScript code — tools that let bloggers add sexy floating links to their sites, count eyeballs, track who's visiting or commenting, and generally nudge their site's "cool" factor up a few points.

But it's what MyBlogLog might do for voracious blog readers that really fires up the imagination.

On MyBlogLog, bloggers have "profiles," and blogs have "communities." Of course, well-read blogs already have communities built around them... regular commenters (or trolls), contributors, maybe even fans who populate an affiliated message board. But for the most part, a given site's community had to find ways to connect on the site itself. If a blog only gave you a little comment box, that was the extent to which you could interact with another reader.

MyBlogLog gives every blog its own social network. Readers set up a profile and join a site's community (and the community of all the other blogs they read). Voila, a new space, separate from the much-beloved but perhaps limited site in question, where readers can interact. And, by browsing the profiles of your favorite site's other readers, you're likely to find some new blogs worth reading, too.

Of course, MyBlog probably only really shines for blogs with large readerships, and works best for those popular blogs that also implement its many site-enhancing tricks. But even just browsing the profiles and users randomly, I've come across strangers with interesting taste, and found several promising new reads.

One possible downside? For bloggers and site owners, I think there's some reason to worry if a site like MyBlogLog becomes your readers' preferred means of interacting or commenting. If you thought it was hard keeping an unruly bunch of readers in line in the comments to your posts, imagine trying to respond to or monitor stuff related to your site on MyBlogLog too.

But, as shiny new web toys go, I think Christa is onto something.

Here's the MyBlogLog community for this blog. If you read, won't you join?

By the way, your site doesn't even have to be a blog to have a listing. Here's HawaiiThreads!