Sep
3
bloggers circle: month 1 assessment
Filed Under Technology | 16 Comments
August was the end of the first full month of the bloggers circle so it’s a good point to take stock of our progress so far and consider what more we can do to make it a constructive space for debate and promoting quality blogposts.
The headline messages from the circle this month are:
- 72 posts were submitted in August of which 21 were debated on another blog
- Over half of the members of the circle have submitted one or more blogposts for debate
- 7 posts were debated more than once but none were debated 3 times, compared with the lively competition in the first month
- Despite August being quieter than the launch week in July there werestill new posts each day for debate
- Only two people have asked to leave, whilst there were a further five new joiners
So what does that mean?
On the positive side, participation in the bloggers circle is greater than the usual 1-9-90 split of online activism but about half of all bloggers haven’t submitted a post.
On the negative side, it means that half of our members haven’t taken part. There have also been grumbles from some members that bloggers have not engaged when they’ve commented on members posts.I’ve also been culpable for some little administrative problems – though the RSA kindly helped out whilst I was on holiday. In particular, people do not always submit posts they’ve debated so sometimes we’ve missed out on some of the kind reciprocity of our members.
But on balance, I’ve been pleased that despite receiving an email each day people have kept with it and to discover such a wealth of ideas and perspectives in our little group. But as a blogger whilst it’s interesting to see what lots of people are writing it’s not that useful – yet. So what more can we do to make it valuable?
My plan is as follows:
- Relax the rules to allow people to submit posts as frequently as they like – as long as they reciprocate with a debated post but in return, people who over-submit may receive a kindly reminder to scrutinise the quality of their posts a little closer. If you are frequently that good – you are probably too good for us
- Work on the way we present the blogs that are debating other posts to give this more prominence
- Recast the website to incorporate links to all of the posts each day – and enable people to subscribe to these as an RSS feed – and redesign the way we display the members
- Release a widget which enables people to profile submissions t0 the bloggers circle on their own blogs
- Survey all of those who haven’t taken part so we learn from their experiences too
- Pursue Matt Seaton at The Guardian to take up his offer of profiling the best blogger each month
But I’d also like your thoughts and ideas of how we should take it forward. These are my questions but if I’m off target, do give your own thoughts.
- Is a monthly cash prize a significant incentive to participation?
- How can we make more impact with the best posts?
- Would you like a wider space for those have a conversation with other bloggers about blogging eg a message board / email group?
- Are there ways we can make it easier for you to get the digest or submit posts?
Related posts:
- Bloggers Circle: week one assessment
- Bloggers Circle 2 months on
- 3 changes to the Bloggers Circle
- Launching the Bloggers Circle
- New members join the Bloggers Circle
Thanks for the report, Matthew.
My pointing out that a few blogs where I’d left comments had not engaged should not be construed as a ‘grumble’. I know some bloggers just write what they have to say, post it, and leave it out there. That’s fine if they want to do that, but I wanted simply to raise the point that the reason I like the BC idea is for the opprtunity to engage in dialogue rather than just read posts (and I suspect I’m not alone in this).
Overall, I think it’s a promising start and hat off to you again for going at it with such perzash. Which isn’t a word, no.
The widget seems a bit of a no-brainer if you can get it done.
I think that the monthly cash prize is less of an incentive than any traffic that you can bring us – so if you could find a way of getting the posts that you’re being pointed to syndicated on a high-volume site, I think that would incentivise people to engage more
If the idea is to encourage diversity and dialogue, I’d say an organic approach is best – it will grow if people find it valuable, not because it’s forced.
My own feeling, for what it’s worth, is that two posts a month is plenty: more than that and it will start to look spammy. There are plenty of other ways people can promote their own posts (their own Twitter feeds, for example) and for those who are more prolific, it’s a useful form of quality control. And if there’s a blogger I particularly like I can always subscribe to their RSS feed or Google Reader or whatever.
I think the ‘so and so is debating such and such’ posts could be improved with a one-line summary on the mailout – that will encourage people to select the ones they might find interesting.
Apart from that, we can all encourage other people we come across to join. It’s the human element of the exchange that appeals, rather than the opportunity to take over the internet.
Hi Matthew,
I think your ideas are good ones.
I haven’t submitted yet, although I have commented on a couple of other members’ posts.
I will get around to doing so, although probably will never do so that frequently (a lot of my post are outside of the social policy arena).
A agree that something approaching a power law distrbibution is probably inevitable, and from my own perspective, I am happy contributing less if others are happy contributing more!
Thanks for doing all of this too.
You have over 100 bloggers. If each of them posts only once a day, that means 3000 posts a month potentially available to be debated. So you appear to be picking up only a tiny percentage of the material out there, of which very little is debated.
My instinct tells me that this is one example where organic growth will not work (since it basically does no more than what happens anyway or not), and that undemocratic ‘forcing’ would be better.
If you or someone (eg one of the Circle picked at random) proclaimed once a week a theme/proposition backed by a specific post and invited the 100 Circle bloggers to submit on it (perhaps on the central site itself), a significant new live debating forum would be created, where comments and replies would ‘flow’ – and be able to be read as such. As it is they are all out there but not really manageable/accessible.
Overall, I think those figures are pretty good. There’s often an initial drop off after the first burst of enthusiasm. Add to that people being on holiday in August – and there being much less news around – and the August figures aren’t bad.
I’d suggest changing the notification emails so that the highlighting of ongoing debates comes first – as that might encourage more contributions.
It might also help if you went for a standard format in the emails for new blog posting of headline, teaser and URL and encouraged us all to use that format. That’d make the emails more likely to encourage response.
Finally, many thanks for making the idea happen.
Hey, just an administrative thing really.
When an e-mail is sent to debate@bloggerscircle.net could there be some sort of automated response to let you know it has been received successfully for consideration. Not that I’ve had a problem in the past but sometimes it is nice to get, and would stop duplicate e-mails being received.
I think the first months results are pretty good. I’m definitely happy being a part of the project, helped expand the blogs which I read.
I have to agree with charles crawford that you can’t necessarily rely on “organic growth.” Perhaps a BC aggregator at the main site like the one at Lib Dem Blogs might allow people to pick up and debate articles that weren’t actually submitted, but that interested them.
First of all I would like to reiterate the comments of other people, Matthew – I think you and the RSA have done a great job in getting this initiative going and I have enjoyed the opportunity to participate.
Personally I find it difficult to keep up with the daily in-flow of new posts. There are many that look interesting but if I don’t read and think about them that day, then there is a fresh crop of posts and I feel I should be looking at those.
A couple of suggestions:
Could a number of members of the circle agree on a weekly basis to produce a kind of summary review? For people who don’t want to look at each individual posting, this would be a condensed version of the highlights with links through to the full posts. I would be happy to participate in this but it would need a number of people I think to work.
Secondly, I think if there was more information about who the bloggers are this would help. Perhaps there should also be a bloggers circle get together nearer Christmas so we can put faces to names. I’m conscious that the people who comment on my blog and whose blogs I am most likely to comment on are people I know.
One last thought – do the stats reflect the fact that bloggers are more interested in what they have to say than in what others have to say! Enabling the circle to work in a way that encourages greater collaboration would definitely be worthwhile but I appreciate this is tricky
Agree with a lot of the positive responses and Charles Crawford’s analysis of the figures and consequently the limitations, but I do have one thought I think worth sharing.
I was asked to take part in an expert panel discussion on educational blogging at the Institute of Education a few months ago because I have a lot of experience running both a public blog and a closed, corporate blog. One of the things I’ve learned and that I stressed at the IoE, was that you have to be a very active reader of your own blog, as well as a writer.
Most readers are not comfortable or confident enough to post comments. It’s a great myth that somehow blogging democratizes scores of otherwise silent internet users. I know many very confident, skilled professionals who would never dream of submitting their thoughts to the net for the world to read, even in a secure, corporate environment. But what that then means, is that those few who do post thoughts merit a response. I make a habit of responding to everyone who comments, even if it is a brief acknowledgment. Readers then feel listened to and return. I think it should almost be a standard blog etiquette.
Thank you for all your thoughts so far. Some of these issues require further consideration but my initial reaction (also following on from the emails I’ve received:
1. Don’t increase the number of posts per month but do give priority to those that haven’t posted
2. Some type of aggregation would be very useful either as posts are submitted, by day or by week
3. The daily emails need to change
4. The real incentive is greater traffic
5. We should have a meet-up for those who want to meet fellow bloggers.
I will return to this again later in the week to set out the key next steps.
I think the August figures aren’t bad, either – I’ve been occupied with things other than blogging recently and I think others have too. I’m very happy to be part of the project and want it to succeed, and I’m aiming to put in more energy in a couple of weeks when the blogholiday season is over.
I wonder if I count as someone who hasn’t submitted. if so, that’s simply because the one time I did submit, I think there was some tech hitch and my post wasn’t circulated in the e-mail!
I think lots of the suggestions are good. I agree, the e-mail isn’t always easy to follow. The idea of a BC aggregator sounds good to me. Some might think it’d stop traffic coming to the actual blogs – but would it? And I’ll try to go to any meet-up.
Thanks Carl. I hope the email is getting easier to follow – in particular, by breaking down the distinctions between the different types of posts.
Whatever we do in terms of aggregation it must not, in any circumstances, take traffic link juice etc away from each person’s blog. I think PoliticsHome does this quite well, although more context would be useful.
By the time I’d finished reading the thread I had nothing concrete to add – everything was in there already.
So this it just to add my agreement and support for all next steps.
Thanks Matt,
R
I agree that 2 a month is enough. Some diffuse thoughts.
I’m struggling with the email notification. Is it a lot of admin overhead for you?
Is there any easy to a “Bloggers Circle” RSS feed, or even a sidebar widget? If we have a headline RSS, all the rest is easy. I’d run it in my sidebar as a feed of interesting but not nakedly political posts.
For aggregation, I put together a set of principles 2 years ago that seem to have stood the test of time:
http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/06/17/code-of-practice-for-blog-aggregators-guidelines-for-good-blogosphere-citizens/
I think that a small cash prize would be a motivator, or perhaps a “Bloggers Circle Post of the Month” sidebar button (which would run across several blogs and take you back to the best article).
Does deciding the “best post” by “number of people commenting” tend encourage controversy over quality?
Is there something that can be done with e.g., Intense Debate, or Back Talk to help centralise comments? Not an easy balance to strike.
Thanks Matt – lots of food for thought.
There is a bloggers circle RSS feed here: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/bloggerscircle?count=10
and there will be a nice sidebar in a couple of weeks – thanks for the offer.
The code of practice is really useful – and I hope I’m getting most of it right, most of the time but do say so if I’m not.
What bit of the email notification is not working for you?
>What bit of the email notification is not working for you?
It may just be that I tend to work through blog links and Twitter these days, rather than through email quite so much. (btw they did arrive).
The real comment challenge is in driving traffic out to blogs while helping focus debate, which may mean focusing visitors in one place.
Thinking, I wonder if the priority at present needs to be some way of “clumping” the debate togetherr, partly to give visibility while it becomes established, and give more of a sense of “debating chamber”. Perhaps we haven’t got he scale to treat it as a network.
At the moment it is diffuse over:
- comments
- Twitter
- posts themselves
I wonder if we can make a point of building a denser network, or have headline feeds in more places ?
Thoughts:
Get a @bloggerscircle Twitter account with the headline feed aliased to it, as well as a hashtag.
I’ve not done enough with backtalk type services to make a detailed suggestion.
Is that RSS feed edited by you, or is it for all-comers?
Matt