I think someone is going to come up with a scheme to bring blogs to email inboxes soon. It seems to be the next evolution in spamming to me. The content management side can’t be beat. But, it is still static. People have to come to you in order to be spammed. How disappointing. Of course they have come up with all sorts of sneaky ways to mislead people into coming for a look. But, once readers realize they’re being splogged they leave and don’t come back. So, emailing it to them is the next step. After all, how many times a day do most people check their email? More than a few for most.
You will get a bloated email full of spammy goodness but that won’t be a problem since mostly everyone has gone out for HTML email. Only a few have kept it to text only. (Mainly because I am still opposed to bloated HTML emails that make me sit and wait for them to spam me). I think some of the blogs coming to your email will have scripts to make them scroll once they are opened. That way they have more chance of snagging your attention before you delete them. Surely they can sell you on something before you hit delete.
I’m writing this cause I would love to see the spammers find some other tool and leave blogs alone. Email spam used to be the biggest problem (and maybe still is for some people) I find splogs to be the worst thing online. They steal content, pollute the blogosphere and they are leaking into what would otherwise be personal blogs worth reading. Get paid to post sites are popping up all over and they are getting clever about their scams too. One offers to pay $20 and up for you to review a commercial website in your blog. Very clever that one. But, do you see that money? Does it just roll right in? I doubt it. All it really does is lose your reader’s attention and bring your blog down to their level of splogginess. Think before you pollute.
PS- I think of any blog with more focus and space given to selling something than original written, drawn or otherwise creative content as spamming. If I didn’t come to your blog to be sold condoms, pills, software, etc then I don’t want to have them stuck in front of my face. If I want ads I can turn on the TV or pick up a magazine. Blogs need a shot of zine spirit when they really were free press and indie publishing. I resent a commercially focused blogger who tries to sneak and trick their way into the free spirited writing atmosphere which blogs used to be.
I joined MyBlogLog awhile ago. I’m feeling frustrated with it. Not because it’s hard to use but three things bother me in general use. One is the friend thing. Another is having to click so many times before I actually get outside of MyBlogLog and land on the site I actually wanted to see, a few clicks ago. The third is the level of splogs versus sites with content. But, that is all over the Internet it just bugs me more when I’m part of a community where I kind of expect to find real people, not advertising.
The thing about friends was what started me writing this blabber today. Everyone on that network seems to assume that any contact at all is worthy of instant friendship. That bugs me. I am choosy about who I bookmark and who I mark as a site I like. I don’t like feeling I have to add every blogger who clicks my blog. It is expected there. People post to your profile and say something nice and request to be made a friend. They don’t even know my name. In a few cases I noticed that they had not even bothered to actually go to my site. They didn’t care, they just wanted to pimp their splogs. It’s aggravating and that’s why I joined BlogCatalog and BlogWoods, cause I hoped they would be different.
The other annoying thing which is the same for all three of those sites is clickage. If you see someone has visited your blog and want to return the visit it takes a minimum of four clicks to actually get to their blog. It’s not that my finger is wearing out, just that I don’t see the need for it. I guess it gives extra hits to their Adsense meters. But, it just gives me that waiting for an elevator or a bus feeling, you know what I mean. It’s great to have the journey but some journeys just make you wish Scotty could beam you up already and get on with it.
Anyway, as a social thing I like these networks. However, MyBlogLog is too much of a splogfest. I’m more interested in BlogWoods and BlogCatalog now. Though they are clones at least Yahoo didn’t buy them so they have hope of not being clogged by junk, at least not right away. It all depends on the people who use it really. So, sploggers, stick with the Yahoo bunch and leave us the little networks to be social and friendly, in a real, sincere way, not because we feel we have to.
The newest addition to my Firefox web habit is Groowe, a toolbar which has replaced the Google toolbar for me. It has the two important features I need and a bit more.
The first thing I like about it is setting it to open a new window when I want to search Google for something. It really bugs me if I have to backtrack or remember to open a window first each time. I like to keep the site I was on. I want to look at all the links before I lose that window. Groowe, just as the Google toolbar before it, does that very well.
The second thing I like about Groowe is the reason I am no longer using the Google toolbar. Groowe works with my older operating system which runs my older computer. I know it’s illegal to run a PC which hasn’t been taken over by Windows XP at the very least but… some of us are just rebels at heart. We keep the old PC and it’s working friends until we can splurge on a new one. Even if it takes years. So, when Google’s toolbar outdated itself right out of my system I went looking for something else. I found it with Groowe. I also like Groowe cause it lets me add searches other than Google. It’s like seeing old friends I had forgotten about for awhile. I do remember looking at Altavista, Excite and Yahoo long before Google was a word.
Suite101.com: Suite University
The main problem with Suite101 (in my opinion) are those Google banner ads which take up too much front line real estate on their topic pages. Each time you open one of the network of topics you must scroll down to see the real content. Those ads make the site look unprofessional and spammy. In the old days we would have said seedy but spam has surpassed seediness.
Anyway, the best things about Suite are the topics which include fairly good to really good articles, written by people who have a personal interest in that topic. The other really good thing about Suite is just new this past month. They now have free online courses. They were not free before but the site policy has changed. Sure, it's a way to bring in traffic but the courses are there for anyone. I didn't even have to register or login with the site.
You may think the courses are just soupy (lacking in usefulness and meaty content) but they are worth checking out. I'm taking a course about web searching right now, just for the heck of it. I've been searching the web almost 10 years but you never know, I could come across something new and isn't that what it's all about?
Why does a 40 year old woman play at Neopets? Well, you see... it's a shopping fetish. I can spend neopoints (dollar value of zero) on as much junk as I can stand. How can you pass that up? In reality I am squeezing pennies so hard the poor things squeak. But, on the Neopian side of things I am a shopping diva, a window shopper without the pesky windows in my way.
It is my secret little side trip when I should be writing. I've actually been late for work (once) cause I was shopping on NeoPets instead of scraping snow off the car.
Want to visit? Sure you do. I'm not the only old woman there. I may not even be the oldest, though I suspect it's close. lol
http://www.neopets.com/randomfriend.phtml?user=dragongrrl
Don't let me stop you from joining, get a pet of your own, a neohome become addicted and join a Guild. Become a neoshopoholic. It's fun.
http://www.neopets.com/guilds/guild.phtml?oid=jambhala