"But I don't do social networking."

Eagle-eyed ShazzerSpeak readers might have noticed a couple of new additions to the right-hand sidebar in recent weeks, namely a pair of widgets from a service called MyBlogLog.

It's kind of hard to describe exactly what MyBlogLog does, and in fact I wasn't even sure how the widgets were going to work when I installed them. The website advertises that it will help you "connect with readers" and "build a community around your blog", but I was highly skeptical that it would deliver. Especially since the only time I intended to spend on the site was long enough to register my blog and grab the code for the widgets.

But a lot of the blogs about blogging that I read (yes, I'm just that geeky) seem to be talking about MyBlogLog lately, so I installed the stats tracking script and the widgets and then promptly ignored them for two weeks. Because the truth is I'm just not that much into stats (that's Dr. Darling's obsession) and could care less about 98.9% of the other social networking sites on the web...why should this one be any different?

And then a funny thing happened. Pictures (or avatars) of visitors to ShazzerSpeak started showing up in the Recent Readers widget...each one representing not only an actual person but a fellow blogger as well. Clicking on the picture takes me directly to his/her MyBlogLog profile where I can leave a message, see who's reading them or click through to their blog where my avatar shows up in their Recent Readers widget.  It's completely addicting.

So if I had to explain MyBlogLog in a single sentence, I'd say it was the ideal stats tracking and social networking site for bloggers who are genuinely curious about who's reading them but don't want to work that hard to find out. Which is why it's perfect for me!

tags: blogging  mybloglog  

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