I just noticed that TechCrunch’s MyBlogLog community page is different to other MyBlogLog communities.
It’s actually been like this for a month or two (I’m not a regular visitor to their MBL page) and is part of MBL’s Co-Branded Communities alpha test.
What are the differences between Co-Branded and Normal MyBlog Logs?
I’m still waiting on an official response from MyBlogLog but here’s how they look different from standard MyBlogLog communities (here are some screen caps of TechCrunch’s community page and ProBlogger’s to compare – click to enlarge).
So lets start at the top of TC’s page – The first change is obviously that the TechCrunch MBL community is on their own domain. They have a MyBlogLog bar at the top with different options linking to the co-branded community page, the user’s MyBlogLog page, the ‘all communities’ page and the ‘all members’ pages.
They also have the TechCrunch logo and navigation/menubar embedded into the page, custom coloring of different elements of the page as well as an extra sidebar which contains TC’s sponsors.
Apart from this the functionality of the pages are pretty much the same (although customized).
My hope with MyBlogLog is that it’ll continue to add new features to it. This sort of co-branded option makes a lot of sense to me. The more integrated it can look and feel with the rest of a blog the better. Co-branded communities will help drive traffic back to the blog itself – which makes it more useful to bloggers – however I want to see more!
ShoeMoney recently wrote a list of MyBlogLog features he’d love to see added:
- Give me the option to not allow links in comments on my sections.
- Allow me to moderate comments on my sections.
- Implement a social voting system on comments and thresholds for negative votes so people are removed when they get to many negatives.
- On my page show me the last time a person visited in addition to the last visitors.
- by default make me moderate friends.
- give me the option to only let friends comment on my community.
- Fix your report spam so it doesn’t send you a email.
- Set thresholds on how many friends a user can add in one day.
- Set thresholds on how many comments a spammer person can leave in a given time.
- Grab real screen shots use alexa or some service to grab screen shot thumbs.
There’s some good ideas there. I wrote on his his post that I’d love to be able to highlight key parts of my blog (co-branded communities seems to offer this) and I’d love to be able to have threaded comments rather than just a big long list of people leaving messages (most seem to be ‘great job – look at my blog type ones).
What features would you love to see MyBlogLog add? What would make it more useful to you?
I just started using MYBLOGLOG yesterday so I am still testing things out.
As far as I know, they are working on most of the new features that ShoeMoney has listed.
As soon as I saw TechCrunch’s co-branded community on MBL a few months ago, I wanted one for Blogcritics right away (Eric, Rafer and crew promise that co-branded sites will soon be more widely available). A co-branded MBL site represents an easy way to tack a vibrant and powerful community element to an existing blogging community.
For a site like Blogcritics, which has 1,700+ writers, the killer feature would be to allow widget tracking by writer or even by article within a much larger content platform environment.
As far as MyBlogLog itself, I would love to see more features that allow people to better identify themselves and to interact with one another. I’ve no doubt that a lot more of this is coming, but at the same time I hope that the site’s simplicity isn’t lost in the process.
I dont understand whats the point to have a cobranded MBL
thedjlist.com is also co-branded like techcrunch.com. I had contacted MyBlogLog about getting one for Highbrid Nation and they said they’d let us know about Alpha and Beta testing coming up. I look forward to using such a feature.
There definitely needs to be some way to moderate and prevent the comment spam. It’s currently one of the most unattractive and annoying features of MyBlogLog.
An easier way to search blogs my theme/type/category might be nice as well. Sure there’s a search feature but maybe if we could add tags or keywords about our blogs it would make it easier for someone to find other blogs they’re interested in.
This is neat, just like the Gmail for your domain services by Google. MBL seems to be getting better and better all the time.
It’s basically the core part of the mybloglog community embedded in their blog… probably using div tags and embed features.. or maybe an iframe…
But, I like the cobranded community… the longer you can keep a reader in your site the better.
Simple one, but I’d love a way to switch off the email notification per community, as opposed to a blanket email notification. I blog for a fairly successful community as well as my own personal blog, and I get probably about 10 messages a day informing me a new comment has posted on the community forum, and I never read them.
However, comments on my own personal blog I’d appreciate to know that.
Nice article Darren, very interesting!
Im still not 100% sure on what you mean by this though…
Change of direction…
Back in the summer of 2003, I wanted my own site dedicated to the things I was interested in. I loved message boards, and I loved the Mac OS. I also spent a good deal of time on other people’s……
Wow that’s pretty cool.
I like the mybloglog.com features but I would like to see the tracking section re-vamped. It seems to mis-report things like adsense clicks.
anthony c – what don’t you understand?
I’ve been considering using MyBlogLog community but I think I’ll wait until they have added the new features. I’m still not completely sure that it is that much of a benefit.
I saw that Ensight had dropped MBL and then saw this post, so I had to sign up just to see what the deal was. I noticed the comments problems right away (and evidently had to whine about it immediately). I agree with most of what Shoemoney said. Basically, it seems MBL could use a little less MySpace and a little more Digg.
Although new to MyBlogLog, I think it provides a good place to network with real friend not spammers. What Shoemoney said is true – I particularly like the idea of knowing who have visited my website and what they view, click and how they leave.
It looks great. The one thing I want them to sort out is the ability to cut (or at least filter) the ‘Top 5 links’ – if you look at the ones on the TechCrunch community they include a link to a site called ‘pornotube’ – not exactly what I want my readers to see as part of my community experience!
I’m keen to start doing more with my community on MBL but that’s the one thing holding me back. I’ve e-mailed MBL but no response.