First, what is MyBlogLog? For those of you who aren’t members, it’s one of the coolest blog applications and was acquired by Yahoo! earlier this year. The site doesn’t do a good job of articulating exactly what the real value is, but here’s my take: Superficially, it’s a standard Web stats package, but its real significance lies in its ability to expose and connect the behaviors of opt-in MyBlogLog community members. While standard site analytics packages generally wash out the individuality of your visitors by morphing them into numbers and averages, MyBlogLog gives you the ability to see in-depth profile information and color about the visitors to your site — including profile pictures of visitors as they visit your site , and where else in the MyBlogLog community they frequent (presuming they are MyBlogLog members). If you haven’t noticed, check out the MyBlogLog “most recent visitors” listing in the sidebar of this blog. The service taps into humans’ most selfish and voyeuristic instincts; in other words, “Who’s paying attention to me, right now?” Moreover, the service passively aggregates and creates communities based on the blogs or sites you frequent.
Borrowing Noah Brier’s phrase, it contributes to our propensity to be passively active. If you become a member of the MyBlogLog community, you become a passive publisher, by leaving behind not only a visual profile of yourself when you travel to other MyBlogLog member sites, but data that organize and expose to create a more comprehensive profile of you who are, and your social networks. Of course, this happens a lot on the Web, in the background, without us even realizing it — think of cookies, spyware and the like. I think MyBlogLog underscores the fact that people aren’t necessarily against exposure of these data, they just want to be in control and feel as though they’re getting something in return. With MyBlogLog, I do.
Now that I’ve introduced MyBlogLog, I’ll tie this post back to the headline. I was surprised to discover yesterday that half of my most recent MyBlogLog visitors were women. MyBlogLog is popular among many of the most savvy bloggers, but why does it resonate so with women? Perhaps some of my recent female visitors in the MyBlogLog network can shed some light, such as:
What do you think?
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