Blogexplosion mystery credits bliss |
Cheap thrills, I know, but whenever you hit the Blogexplosion (referral link) mystery 100 credits, it’s a virtual thrill of sorts.
For those not BE initiated, this means 100 free visits from other blog readers. Yes, some of them are not really interested in reading your blog and will just stop by to suck up free credits and leave. There continues to be discussion and debate as to the value of this traffic, but I’m in the crowd that thinks any new human visitor is an opportunity, even if it might be a 30 second fleeting one. I’ve noticed that some newer blogging related sites like performancing are showing up a lot in there, so for the folks who show up in the comments and say BE sucks, I consider BE among the cream of the crop of these type sites that I’ve tried.
Last time I wrote about BE, in fact, Shane commented: “Blog Explosion sucks royally.” Well, Shane, I’ve tried others like Blogclicker and Honesty Hits and most of those do suck royally, and some things about BE aren’t great either, so I’m with you part of the way.
Some things I do not like about BE? (perhaps a new service will emerge to incorporate these ideas)
- How the URL to the blogs being surfed is often obscured. It should be easy to see what the URL of the website is and I wish they’d add that somewhere without me having to hover over links and right click. Especially don’t like how the URL is obscured in the BlogMarks section. Yeah, they are tracking the outclick links, but at least they could put the URL in the tracking link.
- The frame. Yeah, I know, they have to have some way of showing their ads, but I’d rather that be detachable so I can surf the site without a frame and answer their CAPTCHA puzzle elsewhere to prove I’m not a bot.
- BE cut the referral tiers from 5 to 3. For those who have been around awhile, know that when BE originally launched they had 5 referral tiers, meaning I refer you, you refer somebody, that person refers somebody, that somebody refers a fifth person and that fifth person is the end of the chain. Any of those five people read blogs and everybody else up the chain earns credits. When they went from 5 to 3 about 40% of my referrals disappeared. Now for the cynical folks who say: a-ha! so that’s why you keep mentioning BE, you want me to sign up so you can earn BE credits while I surf? Yeah, if you like finding new blogs that you might not otherwise find, sure I do. And I want you to buy from the sponsors too, if you are interested in their products/services. Guilty as charged. I have tried not to be a nuisance about it, though, as BE has only been linked up in 6 of 2,717 posts as of this writing.
- popularity cliques present in voting contests? This blog has never won their Battle of the Blogs (currently 0-3). Can Hmm be that crappy? Not to toot my own horn (sure I am), but there is no way this blog can always lose. It seems some of these battle bloggers are more entrenched in the BE community than I am (heck, I just go there mostly to find new blogs to read), so it would be easy to form cliques of friends and game these contests. I don’t mind being the underdog, but c’mon, can a little love in the ring be shown? I just signed up for my 4th battle contest while I’m writing this, so we’ll see if I can whine and dine my way to a victory. My other blog in the system (php-scripts blog) hasn’t won yet. For those who don’t know what this is, it’s a contest where you pit your blog against somebody else’s, other BE members vote for their favorite and the winner takes 10, 15, 25 or more credits. Totally ego-driven, but who wouldn’t get tired of eating the canvas every time?
There are more things I like about BE than dislike or I wouldn’t keep mentioning them but the gimmicks aside the main thing is finding new, interesting blogs to read. A few gimmick examples: they keep coming out with new, creative ways for members to interact and earn credits like games (they have Sudoku, which is popping up lately), they run holiday promotions also (they’re giving away $1,000 in December).
Anyway, enough of BE, I won’t mention them for the rest of 2005. Have you spent any time at these type sites? Do you like/dislike them? Why/why not?
Update 1:05pm PST: Looks like spoke too soon. Today I won two Battle of the Blogs matches (thank you to those who voted). Maybe I got some extra sympathy votes. One win was for my Mac blog and the other was for Hmm.
Did this post make you go hmm?
(Hmm, no ratings yet)
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I agree with you that it often seems like there’s a voting cabal that one runs up against. However that would defeat the purpose of being on Battle of the Blogs since if your friends visit your website and vote for you, you don’t get the new visitors that you wanted. So I don’t know–but your theory of friends voting like that would explain some of my losses in battles.
Comment by Dave — December 15, 2005 @ 12:33 pm PST
I do like the fact of another venue to get traffic. But for me it hasnt generated any revenue.
While Ive surfed the BE…I’ve only found a few worth stopping at. Onlt 1 or 2 that I finally got the url for and visit regularly. Which, is the point!
However, being a novice blogger myself, I can’t help but notice my eyes skim right over affiliate ads, and adsense. Theyve become part of the browser to me, like furniture. I rarely hit one up. Which makes me wonder how many of ‘our type’ hit up ads for revenue. I’m definately not my own target audience.
Comment by ^Lestat — December 15, 2005 @ 12:41 pm PST
Lestat - you might try going through the BE directory (have you already?) for the categories you are interested in. Whenever I do that, I usually add at least one new blogmark. I think I have like 20 total blogmarks now. I also find it interesting to see who else is showing up a bunch on there. I’ve also clicked a few of the BE banners so those do work if they are creative.
Comment by TDavid — December 15, 2005 @ 12:55 pm PST
[…] 7. Listen to Scoble and get the freaking checkbook out and buy some dominant websites/services/products and then don’t ruin them before the ink is dry. Digg and Memeorandum are there for the taking if the price is right. Another relatively small player that isn’t on many folks radars but would fit in nicely with their blog search and the webmaster space: think Adcenter (sorry I promised not to mention these folks in 2005 again, but they just fit this post too well). I’m talking about BlogExplosion (referral). One of the first things website owners and bloggers want to do is increase their site traffic and BlogExplosion is currently leading their niche market, which would give Microsoft an edge in an area where they are weak and Google is strong: delivering traffic to third party sites that are not paid advertisers. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » 8 things Microsoft can do in 2006 to better compete against Google search and Adsense — December 28, 2005 @ 12:46 pm PST
While I lost a few referrals too, I end up getting more credits because of the higher % for level 1. And speaking of new feature have you seen the new shoutbox? It’s awesome!
Comment by Jason — January 24, 2006 @ 3:56 am PST
[…] I’ve been a fan of the site Blogexplosion a site which tries to help blog owners generate some new readers. Some people think Blogexplosion and sites that copy it are low rent and haven’t bothered. I’d agree with this sentiment with the copycat sites, but BE had been above the trash. Like any other community based site, it’s a relatively smaller group of active users and then people like me who stop by and check out what’s happening once in awhile. […]
Pingback by Blogimplosion » Make You Go Hmm — December 13, 2006 @ 9:22 am PST