Parent Hacks Community: 2/20/07

Our new community "features" are taking off nicely! Folks are starting to tag their relevant blog posts, del.icio.us links, and Flickr photos with parenthacks. (Many thanks to Jim for the incredible tutorial on how tagging and Technorati work.) Here's a glimpse at what's appearing:

• Clearview continues the discussion about quality time.
• In his blog, Commute Smarter, frequent hack contributor Duane Morin asks: How do you structure the morning?
• Kirsten puts forth an amazing homemade booklet of her own parenting wisdom (pictured here).
• Lisa at Lil' Duck Duck asks for (and gets!) advice on how to handle her toddler's scary drain fears.
• From linuxactivist: DIY Photo Cube (Lifehacker)
• From ashaland: Kevin Kelly -- Cool Tools (Family category)

I'm also experimenting with MyBlogLog and have added the widget to the left sidebar in the Community section (where you'll also find links to the Technorati, del.icio.us, and Flickr pages devoted to the parenthacks tag). While I'm enjoying being able to find out more about the folks who visit Parent Hacks, I admit I'm still not sure what MyBlogLog does. I'm going to give it a little while though to see what comes of it. What do you think?

Comments

[Jeremiah]

I have used MyBlogLog for a little while now and haven't seen much benefit. I read an interesting article yesterday on TechCrunch that discusses the problems with MyBlogLog and talks about an open-source startup, Explode, you might consider. Here's a shortened link to the article:

http://tinyurl.com/2fqgqj

and here's a link to Explode, which I haven't used but which sounds interesting:

http://explode.elgg.org

[Mama Duck]

I use MyBlogLog but don't really see the benefit, hmmm. Thanks for the link though!

[Duane]

I originally signed up for MyBlogLog ages ago for what it was originally intended -- link watching. Since I host my blogs on blogspot and don't have full log access, MyBlogLog enables me to track who's coming, what they're reading, and most importantly the external links they're leaving on. that alone is worth far more than all of the community nonsense they've added which is really little more than excuses to spam people. (Notice how everybody's MyBlogLog icon now is an attractive woman? Most of them aren't women, they've just learned that geeks sign up for communities more aggressively if they think an attractive woman is running it. True and sad story.)

[Eric Marcoullier]

Asha -- In addition to the excellent and straightforward stats we provide, many people enjoy using MyBlogLog because it helps them connect with each other. And not just author to reader. By posting a reader roll, your readers can now connect with each other, see what other blogs are interesting and build friendships. MyBlogLog forges connections around your site -- what could be more awesome than that?

Duane -- Yes, some of our users have tried this with some success. However, before you make blanket statements like that, it's always wise to check whether you can be called out without leaving the page. See that sidebar on the left? I'm failing to see the attractive women, although I do see a couple of cute babies, a cheeky monkey and a cool looking dog :)

[Parent Hacks Editor]

Eric: Thanks for dropping by. That's *exactly* what I'm going for with my Community section -- I want to give Parenthackers a way to more easily connect with and find out more about each other.

[Marlo]

I like using MyBlogLog. I am finding more interesting blogs that I would have never found if not for the widget. It is also good to see who are the other bloggers visiting your site.

[Jeremiah]

I have three Gmail accounts, two of them forwarded to my main account. I recently began receiving spam, just over the past couple of weeks, in numbers greater than one spam email per week.

I finally got around to figuring out which email address they were coming to. Turns out it was the one I have only been using for a couple of places, including MyBlogLog. Since some of the spam is dead-end email notifications from MyBlogLog ('so and so wants to add you as such-and such on their blog - as a co-author, for example, for a French-language-only blog) I'm pretty sure that's where it's coming from. My other uses for the address have been online for a couple of years, I just started using MBL a few months ago, and I just started receiving spam a few weeks ago.

I cancelled my account there this morning.