mybloglog Archive

David Dalka has a recap of a presentation by Yahoo's MyBLogLog Community Manager Robyn Tippins at an event in Chicago on Friday. The biggest news that David notes includes: MyBlogLog relaunch and redesign, 2.0 upgrade?, and a way to turn off "presence". Frankly, I have never loved the widget from the beginning as my browsing is my own, thank you.

Mike notes, "A redesign will be good. What will be even better is a commitment to 100% uptime. As a widget company it is not acceptable to slow down or take down partner sites. MyBlogLog’s first priority must be performance."

What I am wondering is if anyone even really uses this widget anymore? I know that my spam emails from MyBlogLog "friends" has all but stopped. It seems that since the ShoeMoney fiasco in February, I just don't see it as much anymore. (and I know they provide some stat services but the widget was what made them grow exponentially)

Here is a suggestion for MyBlogLog/Yahoo – let users select what they show and tie it into the other Yahoo services such as Flickr/Geocities/etc. So when I click on a user, I can see their Yahoo items that they decide to share with the public. This would be a lot more beneficial to my site users and would also tie back into your other core services.

Update: Duncan Riley has a similar post to mine with his titled, "Too Little, Too Late."

I am sure we have all seen it by now. The rats in the KFC/Taco Bell in lower Manhattan. Here is a link to the video on YouTube. The video is quite disturbing so please put down your burrito or hot wing before you watch it. Friends of mine in Europe have said this story appeared on their local news. So here is my question…. knowing these rats ran free all over the place, would you ever eat at this establishment again (assuming you did in the past) or would you consider eating there for the first time when they reopen?

Now you might be asking me, what in the bloody heck does a rat have to do with a new startup web site? So let me explain. I would never eat at this establishment now. No matter what they do, I doubt many people will go in there. They could offer free chicken for life, and people will stay away. 

And so I started to think about when a web site "does us wrong" how long do we hold a grudge. How bad does something have to be to make it a "lifer" in terms of never using the service again. Luckily, it appears that most web sites can't physically injure us (yet!) so even if the web sites get a few "rats", we will still go back to them over time.

Here are some recent examples:

• MyBlogLog fiasco – the latest bit has Eric from MyBlogLog apologizing to ShoeMoney. So in this case, a rat becomes a beautiful swan :)
• Microsoft and their Vista laptops
• Walmart and their video download service block on
• Walmart and their fake blog
• Sony and their fake blog 

For me, I have an easy rat. A buddy of mine was joking with me about a number related to my NYC trip. So I said I should play that number in the lottery. I headed down to my gas station and filled out a slip. I don't play this lottery game and so I filled it out how I thought I needed to. The machine did not take it. The clerk said you need to fill out another. I said ok and filled it out the same way. It did not go in again. I said can you help me as I don't play this often. He then decided to curse at me and tell me I should know how to play it. He finally punched it in manually and gave me the ticket. I paid and told him he will never see me here again. He cursed me again and told me he doesn't care. Here I buy all my gas from him and a couple lottery tickets a week, and all he could do was curse at me. So now he gets a lifetime rat. I think its easier to issue lifetime rats to offline "real life" shops vs. online ones. I wonder why?

An interesting side note… in a keynote I listened to from Calacanis, he notes that most times, the difference between greatness and the bad are very close. And I agree with him.

Does an apology always clear everything up? We all screw up. So I ask you, do you have any examples of a rat where you won't be going back to that service? Has a service, site, blog, etc. been bad enough to earn a lifetime rat?

ShoeMoney has just announced that he has been banned from MyBlogLog. Check out his story plus the comment from the Scott Rafer from MyBlogLog offering a refund to Shoe.

Shoe claims that all he did was report on some bugs within the MyBlogLog system.

The MyBlogLog service has received a lot of praise and critical comments since it blew up on the scene and quickly acquired by Yahoo!. Overall I think the service is neutral, I don't like the widget because no one needs to know what blogs I visit unless I want to share that.

Update: Andy Beal has removed and is boycotting MBL from his Marketing Pilgrim site until Shoe's profile is reinstated.

SoloSEO has launched a variety of new tools to help maximize your MyBlogLog experience. SoloSEO notes, "Our tools go beyond the basic searching and browsing available at MyBlogLog by relying on the networks created between MyBlogLog users and Blog communities." 

The tools include:

• Compare Blog Visitors – want to see if there is overlap between CN and Mash? What about x and y? I like this because you can see which visitors hit your site plus your top competition
• Compare Your Contacts – see which contacts you have in common with other contacts from the same blog
• Compare Community Members – similar to the Compare Blog Visitors above, here they compare the people who have favorited a community with another favorited community
• Common Communities between Contacts – see what other communities your contacts have in common and add them to your list
• Show All Visitors – this tool shows you 6x more visitors than the MBL widget does. Tres cool!
• Add Missing Contacts – find and add missing contacts to your MBL contact list

This is a great example of taking a tool and creating added value from it. Great job SoloSEO!