I'm Just Sharing

After an interesting statement from Dennis Edell on this post about blogrolls, I thought I’d write a post about blogrolls, highlighting my own.

First, why blogrolls? To me, a blogroll is an expression of what interests and informs the writer of a particular blog. I have two blogs, and, for the most part, the same blogs aren’t listed on both of them. Myself and others have been giving a lot of attention to Wordpress plugins that help to develop a community, as well as shows people how much we appreciate their commenting on our blogs. However, the blogroll was the original “link love” of the game, and in my opinion is a much stronger indication of just how much you appreciate what you read on someone else’s blog in general.

On this blog, right now I have 19 blogs that are on my blogroll; look to the right. In some fashion, I have a relationship with each person whom I’ve listed, whether it’s direct contact or writing a comment on their blog or just wanting to have a quicker way of finding a blog that I’d like to check in on from time to time instead of having to open up my Feedreader program. Even Dennis’ blog, Direct Sales Marketing, is listed among the participants of my blogroll, because it’s one I visit and comment on frequently. And my friend Sire has the distinction of being the only person who has two blogs listed; I’m betting he wishes I’d all all six of his blogs, but instead I’ll direct you to the guest post he made on this blog, where I listed the ones he didn’t list. Oh, as a sidebar, Wordpress also allows you to set it up so that, if people visit other blogs from yours, you can have it open in a new window or browser so that people don’t actually leave your blog, if that’s what you want (look for _blank).

I love seeing how many blogs are listed in someone else’s blogroll, and I love visiting many of them from time to time. There’s just so much to see in the blogosphere, of all types, and I find most people fascinating. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ll leave my comments, and often people will come back here, and if we visit each other enough then we establish our own community. I expect that over the course of the next few months I’ll be adding more blogs to the blogroll, but I’ll also be eliminating some as well. If a person hasn’t written a post in a few months, then what’s the point of being a regular visitor, right?

So, I’d like to encourage folks to visit all the people on my blogroll (okay, one of those is my business blog, but check it out also), and if you’re so inclined see who they might list. Also, why not have your own blogroll, or if you do, mention it from time to time and share the experience of those blogs you enjoy and learn from with other people. That’s how we’ll all grow to know each other well.