Library clips

I’ve posted on MyBlogLog before, for those who don’t know it’s a community for your blog, or perhaps a social network.

See more about communities and blogs and how visitors can interact with your blog.

MyBlogLog and a similar service blogcatalog provide you with your own user space, and your blog also has its own user space, actually social network RSS Readers like Streamy and FeedEachOther (FEO) are doing the same thing, you have your own user space, and so does each blog in the system. Each user profile will show friends, etc…and each blog profile will also show friends (or people who subscribe in the case of Streamy and FEO).

Lifestreaming services are kind of like this as well, except you only have a user profile which is also your lifestream profile.
Reason being is that to join a lifestream service you have to have a lifestream, but to join MyBLogLog or a social network RSS Reader like FEO, you don’t need to have a blog, you can just join because you are a fan of blogs.

At the moment MyBlogLog have a comment wall on a user profile (called messages), so do blogcatalog (called Shoutbox, these can be made private), but the blog profiles don’t have a comment wall.

I’d love this comment wall as a widget to put on my blog, just like the Recent Readers widget…I’d also like a private message widget. My idea is I could login to my private message widget from my blog, so I don’t really have to visit blogcatalog or MyBlogLog (which ever service you are to use).
As for the comment wall, from the widget on my sidebar I could click wall to wall and leave a reply, or if the person who left a wall comment was not part of the blog social network, then I could just reply in general, they would probably have to subscribe to the comment wall feed for notifications.

At the moment I don’t feel like MyBlogLog represents my blog community in an official way, until I use it’s features more, which would happen if more widgets were available (and integrated into my blog). Otherwise I don’t really visit their site, there’s not much to do their, unlike Facebook…their Recent Readers widget is what is keeping them alive, in my mind anyway.

If there were more widgets, more of my blog visitors would engage, and perhaps I could have a “add this blog as a friend” widget on my blog, this way visitors would recognise there is some sort of community here and I can be part of it.

Also I find it confusing that MyBlogLog gives me 2 profiles, one for me and one for blog…but maybe it has to be like that as you may have more than one blog.

Anyway I would like me as a person and my blog to have one merged profile, so it would be:

Library clips blog profile

- blogs that follow Library clips
- blogs that Library clips follows
- private messages for this blog
- comment wall for this blog
- recent readers of Library clips (site visits by MyBlogLog people to the actual blog site)
- IM Libary clips
- email Library clips
- SMS Library clips
- group chat about Library clips
- discussion forum about Library clips
- voicemail Library clips
- incoming links to Library clips
- subscribe to Library clips by RSS, email, IM, SMS, podcast (text to speech)
- how many times Library clips posts have been bookmarked
…perhaps aideRSS could cover these last two points

So as you can see this becomes a pure social network for blogs, similar to what Facebook is for people.

Currently I use many services to accomplish all of the above, and nothing is tied together, I don’t have a one stop shop for Library clips visitors.

Some services I use for my blog are: MyBlogLog, Feedburner, Contactify, Cbox, Plugoo, GTalk, Jaxtr, Technorati, FeedBlitz, Zingku, Talkr, RSS2PDF, mobilze, XFruits, SpotPlex, ClustrMaps…

Now I’m not saying one service needs to provide this, not at all, I’m refering to displaying all these services into the one page, perhaps I could use a startpage.

And this is the point, if I do use a startpage, then all these services I use have to have widgets…but what about a social network startpage specific for blogs.

I’m getting to my point of a Facebook for blogs, where I could have a homepage for my blog with lots of 3rd party apps, and this homepage is within a social network.

And for the real kicker…I don’t really care that much about going to my user space in this proposed social network, I want it to be all integrated into my blog.

You might say I already have all these widgets, badges, and buttons, on my blog…the difference is I want all these looking uniform, and my blog will be part of a social network (friends, discussion, innovation)…plus my blog will be represented at the actual social network, so that is more exposure and conversation, and all round socialness.

Another thing is that when reading a blog I like, I might see that their blog is part of this blog social network, and I will feel induced to interact, by perhaps leaving a comment, then we may become friends, etc…all this networking without having to go to a social network homepage.

What I want

At the moment my blog visitors can visit my blog and have a little interaction
eg. IM, email, chat, SMS, comment…but then that’s it, they leave, there is no stickiness.

Now I’m not going to create a social network just for my blog, as my blog is not that popular, but if there was already a social network for this sort of thing then I would get to meet all these new people and chill out with people I already know as now we have a place to hang out.

We are hanging out not for personal reasons like Facebook, but to extend conversations about each others blog posts, and just to have somewhere to communicate with each other in the context of blogs. If I get a comment wall, private message, IM, etc…within this network, it’s all going to be related to my blog.

So basically I want a Facebook for blogs where I can interact with fans and visitors, and I can add all these 3rd party apps I use to my profile.

But at the same time I want to be able to add these 3rd party apps to my blog, not the way I have got them now, but similar to Facebook apps (widgets), where you click on the name and the widget expands/collapses.

The real cool thing is that my blog would have a proper comments wall, private messages, friends, recent readers, etc…

People not registered with this social network would still be able to send a private message by sending it to a unique email address…and leave a comment on the wall, just like leaving a comment on a blog post.

With those who are part of the network, as I mentioned before; I can visit their blog and comment on their wall, or send a message, or request as a friend…or I could go to the social network to do all this.
There will be much more connectedness with registered users over visitors of my blog who are not regisitered in the blog social network…those not registered will be aware that a blog network exists, and may join to further engage in the conversation.

So it’s about a place to further discuss blog posts, but also just questions, requests and discussions about the blog in general.

Instead of people emailing or IM’g me about their latest product, or asking a question, etc…it could all be kept neat in a social network dashboard. Sometimes people who want to ask questions leave a comment in my “about” post, this is my very first blog post…I think there is a better way.

The widgets on my blog sidebar would look all neat and be packaged with a similar expand/collapse look, and I could search the network for other apps I don’t know about that I’d like to add to my blog and blog network page.
I’m aware I can neaten up my sidebar widgets with Javascript, see a post by 3spots, but to also have this replicated on a blog network page, and the fact I can network with my subscribers and with people I subscribe to…

Anyway, I think MyBlogLog is an ideal candidate for this, some new direction…

Hmmm, maybe even Feedburner, they already have a subscriber community, which are mostly bloggers…

Related:
Backwardblog and a PingMe social network idea
reverse blog and email blog post pinging
Email and blog comments
About trackbacks
More on MyBlogLog OPML
MyBlogLog and community possibilities
Where do I get a MyBlogLog Recent Readers Grazr widget?
MyBlogLog becomes an expert locator