The latest “next big thing” in the blogosphere: MyBlogLog, a site that people can sign up on — and then be members of — a blogger’s community. Sign-up is easy, both for readers and for bloggers.
Like most people who write on leading edge stuff, I’m way into “the next big thing” — but version 1.1; not version 1.0, nor the beta version. I would characterize myself as bleeding edge in trying out new things, but the second iteration. I bleed, but my blood doesn’t flow!
But, I’m right there on MyBlogLog. Here’s why:
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I love the interactivity in blogs. But, the interactivity of a blog — while much better than a web site — is limited to comments on specific posts. That’s good, of course, but the limiting factor is the post and the author of the post.
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Communities are about people in the community being able to discuss the latest and greatest. Blogs, to a degree, limit that capability to the post.
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Communities have great ideas amongst themselves, expressed within the community. The ideas in a blog are somewhat limited to the comments or the ability of the author to come up with the same ideas. Being able to express the ideas in a forum-type environment is better.
Hence, MyBlogLog.
My personal opinion is that community is paramount, especially in working with a specific knowledge area — and especially a community built around your writing. Your writing community can offer you advice, support your writing, and become the base to whom you market your work. How to build a community, then, is critically important. Technology can help.
But, community is built in stages. This blog is very new, even though I have been blogging for about a year and a half in this area, but decided to split off this subject area from the Scot Herrick WriteBlog site precisely because a separate blog has the capability to build a community.
So, the first miracle is to continue to build compelling content here on the blog. That’s my job.
The second miracle is to have a good number of people commenting here, building up the community and the ideas to talk about. That’s your job, assuming the content is up to snuff.
The logical next miracle is to then build out a forum-type environment where all of us can share our ideas, have a few debates (be nice!), and build out our writing network of people where we can get help and offer solutions to others.
My analysis says I’m in stage one. But I’m offering stage three. Maybe, in the end, there is a different, faster way of building community.
Let’s start the community with two people talking on MyBlogLog Ten Keyboards community — me and you. Then watch it grow.
Sign up for MyBlogLog and join the Ten Keyboards Community. Leave a note on any good Technology for Writers subject since it is a connected, but separate entity from the blog; we’ll start talking.
Don’t you want technology to help your writing? Me too. Together, let’s figure out how and build something to admire.
Scot
[tags]blogging, community, finding-your-voice, marketing, MyBlogLog, passion, technology-for-writers, ten-keyboards[/tags]
