It’s Friday again so soon!

If you are new around here, every friday we run a post like this where we give users the chance to leave us a comment about whatever they want to. Tell us about your blog, our blog, or anything else on your mind.

The idea is to get a mini discussion going. The best commentor will be selected and given a link on our site, and we now also have a top commentor section.

Don’t miss out!

[Update]

Comment Friday post had 11 comments and we would like to recognize RC for his weird posts! He will be added to our list under Comment Friday at the top of the right column. I’d also like to thank Ryan for stopping by and commenting, he was a previous comment friday winner. Stop by next friday so you can get your blog linked up!

If you read my baseball blog at all, you know I have been following the Josh Hamilton story for quite a while now. I am not sure what it is that intrigues me so much, other than the fact that I always root for underdogs and love stories like his. When all is said and done, no matter the outcome, I would love to be the one to collaborate to help him share his story with world.

By now, I am sure most of you are saying, “What the heck is he blogging about? Who is Josh Hamilton and what is the story?” Take a moment to see for yourself.

Hamilton’s Story Shines Despite Lack of Coverage

The best way to judge a book isn’t by its cover, but to open it up and get stuck in. So I tried to sign up for Blogoculars, a site that the owner claimed fitted into the category of sophisticated directory alongside chainki, swicki and bla.st. Is it?

Browser compliance.
Apple’s Safari is a standards compliant browser. Unfortunately, I couldn’t peel back the address bar on the browser window to see the sign-up info in the header of the blogocular page. Never mind. Mac users are determined too – as a minority, you have to be – so I fired up Firefox, and voila, a full webpage appeared.

Blogocular’s directory layout
First impressions for first-time visitors who land on the site are good. Clear, simple, sharp. The directory’s navigation is divided into a manageable 18 sections. Comedy was the closest to The Pisstakers genre. This category was actually quite an improvement on other directories where humor doesn’t even figure sometimes.

Signing up to Blogocular
The signing-up process was simple, apart from unnecessarily having to hunt for a link to the Terms. (I had to agree to them before joining, so I felt obliged to check them out.) Nothing to hide, so how about a link right there on the form?

In theory all was hunkydory easy and I should have been listed very easily. Unfortunately Mac Mail junk filters are a wee bit too smart and I haven’t managed to receive the authorization email yet. Perhaps the site owner could post the salient part of the email address on the form so we can go ahead of time to our email preferences and divert their impending mail away from the junk folder?

How users use the directory
What do visitors see when they land on the site? Clarity! Click on a category in the heading and the relevant blogs appear. Click on a blog and go through to a list of recent posts. Each post entry in the directory is based on an Atom or RSS feed, which means you get a title and the first lines of the original text.

Features
There is tracking and voting and all the usual good stuff, including stars. And the ads aren’t too intrusive. But the killer feature for me is the scrolling iFrame, which means you can scroll through massive lists without losing track of where you are on the main page. Most cool in my opinion, and I wonder why they didn’t use the same system throughout the site structure.

Blogocular, winner or loser?
It is a lot better presented than most directories, because there is no sense of structural massiveness, thanks to lots of good old whitespace and that scrolling iFrame. On the other hand, Blogocular is text only, so whilst it loads quick, web 2 freaks could argue that it is a bit utilitarian. Maybe site thumbnails wouldn’t be a bad compromise? And if the categories could be expanded perhaps with dropdown sub-categories off the basic list, and let users add their own categories, maybe it can stay organized and will never grow into a morass of blogs.

Although I don’t hold out much hope that the Blogocular directory will generate mega amounts of traffic for The Pisstakers tech or blogger review blogs, it is probably a good time to get your blog listed before the directory behind the elegant front becomes a sprawling list. Enjoy watching the PR benefits accumulate over time, and of course, discover lots of fab blogs.

And hey, the 143 Safari users out there could sure do with a glimpse of the header!

We are trying out a few new things on the blog, let me do a run-down of everything that is going on.

First off, we are starting a blog carnival that will run monthly, and if successful, every two weeks. If you aren’t famaliar with blog carnivals you submit your entry URL and information you want posted, then it is run in sort of a list. It builds a link to your blog and exposure to it as well. To submit your blog click here, there is currently no category or topic, simply because we want your best post! Try to submit your best or favorite post of the month for the carnival.

We are adding new advertisements on the right sidebar as there isn’t as much income coming in. I will continue to try to monetize our blog as best as I can. We are currently running AdWords and other advertising to try to get as much exposure as possible. Donations are always welcome.

I would also like to announce, finally, our blog competition. We are looking for 10 blogs to review us! The review will be voted by a panel of 6 or so members of Blog about your Blog including me. The best review will receive 10 dollars, second place and third place will receive 5 dollars. Payments will be made by me, via paypal.

There are a few requirements, first your blog must be older than 30 days and updated somewhat regularly. The review has to be a minimum of 100 words and you of course must link to our site. You can write about whatever you want about us, look around our blog a bit first. Feel free to mention what you like, dislike, suggestions etc, but make sure it’s good! It’s a competition! Sorry BAYB members, this competition isn’t for you, but soon after this I will announce a competition exclusively for BAYB! Then only our authors can enter the review contest! (many of you blog about us anyhow, just trying to give back)

If you are curious if you qualify leave me a comment and I’ll personally check. All blog reviews will receive a linkback! Remember we want 10 blogs to review us. We hope to have this acheived in two or three weeks so our judges can get their scores to me.

No sports. No religion. No politics. All The Time!

Getting on track with the Blog Reviews, Tiny Voices in my Head is first up.

Layout

Great header at the top, as the tagline says “the perfect blend of good and evil”. The template is a darker theme, but it works. Simple but decent. No ad placement or huge banners to take away from the content. You do see a somewhat large picture of the author, I might make it a tad smaller.

Content

What I like everytime I visit this blog is the number of comments, it’s ridiculous. 39 on some, 42 on another, heres 53! It’s obviously a personal blog so there should be a few more comments than other blogs, but that’s still really good. She must have a nice broad readership. It gives the blog other story to read basically. First the article, then the comments.

After opening up the buttons on the site, you can see 38 readers on feedburner. More surprisingly though, this blog has been going since 2004! No wonder! Great job on keeping it up that long.

For some reason I really like this post on BlockBuster vs Netflix. Eventually I am going to get the BlockBuster direct, after reading this entry.

Most of the rest of her posts are random and humorous pointing out the things in life that don’t make much sense. You can see that by her most recent post entitled Grab Bag.

Suggestions

With a blog as big as this one, she should make it easier to find certain posts or topics. Categories or a search bar would definitely help that.

She also could possibly pull off having more posts on the front page, I only count 4. When I read a blog I like, such as this one, I usually scroll down to the bottom reading the posts that interest me. As long as it doesn’t take a year to load, the more posts displayed on the front page, the better. It gives me more of a variety to read.

I’m not much on giving ratings, I wouldn’t know where to start, but this blog definitely has something going. I mean your dealing with a 3 year veteran! Go check her out and say Blog about your Blog sent ya!

Click here to find out how to get your Blog Reviewed!

Here is a blog promotion question, and it isn’t rhetorical, so please feel free to answer.

You have a spare $25 and want to increase awareness and generate some buzz over at the new topfunnies blog. It is not a question of making money right now, just kickstart some targetted traffic that is interested in videos and posts about the world’s best comedians.

You have to use the $25 by the end of the month. One idea was to offer $25 for the funniest comment. What would you spend it on for maximum effect?

Having been around the business opportunity scene for quite a number of years I hate to see people being sucked into dodgy schemes.

One such program I feel is the Wealth Toolbox. Simply for signing up with them they claim they will pay $50 to new members. They also say that any referrals are also worth a further $50 each. This is obviously a load of old tosh.

In saying this, though, I’ve seen quite a few bloggers falling for the hype and promoting the program.  I’ve written a post today, on my own blog, about this: A Warning About Wealth Toolbox.

It reminds me of a Ponzi scheme first originated by Charles Ponzi before WW2.

Making money with advertised opportunities is a mine field, especially now with worldwide availability over the Internet.

The old adage is true: If a money making scheme looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Good blogging,
Mike.
Mike’s Money Making Mission