Dr. Warnock, who started one of the first aggregators for protestant god-bloggers, wants to start another aggregator called 12 Christian blogs.
It’s just gimmicky enough to work.
Everything needs a hook, and although his idea focuses on evangelicals, the object of the exercise is to get god-bloggers some traffic. It’s one of those if you can’t beat them, join them proposals and it could be very effective in driving up blog visitors, if that is your thing.
I have an idea for another aggregator which should help with this notion of using prominent blogs to direct people to intermittent but good posters. This aggregator would be entitled Twelve Christian Blogs. This site would aggregate 12 prominent Christian Blogs who are committed to serving the community of Christian blogs. Each of these blogs would have a different flavour, and each of them would have two things in common. Firstly they would be consistently listed by the Truth Laid Bear ecosystem as having lots of other bloggers linking to them. Secondly, they would each often give back to the blogging community by linking to the posts of other Christian bloggers. These blogs and the hundreds of other Christian bloggers out there have the potential to make massive impact. If you wanted a quick glance at what the Christian blogosphere is speaking about right now you woukd go by that page. Each of the bloggers would also be happy to receive a personalised email if a blogger believed they had posted something that will be of interest to one of them.
There has been a regular outbreak of aggregators lately.
I’m not a joiner, (been there done that, very sorry I did) I don’t follow programs well, and I trip over rules; but for structured, disciplined bloggers of the evangelical persuasion this might be a quick and easy way to build their audience. Dr. Warnock can claim success with his first aggregator The Blogdom of God which now sits near the top of a blog rating system called The Truth Laid Bear. Some of the bursts of enthusiasm can be credited to Hugh Hewitt, a US pundit who recently wrote a book on blogging.
A few years ago there was St. Blog’s and the rest of us. Now there are a couple of thousand god-blogs; 1) many who have no desire to join up, 2) are busy forming their own community or 3) who are finding their way in blogging and are looking for the like-minded. One of the goals of this group is a christian instapundit. There are rules for joining the Blogdom of God, you can find them here.
It is great to see so many embrace this hobby and it’s good to see those that have been posting for awhile giving others a hand up.
Blogging is definitely not boring.
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He’s forever trying to raise traffic and TLB Ecosystem rankings. I don’t like that whole idea or motivation.
I think some of the idea comes from a blog book like Hugh Hewitt - he incourages god-bloggers to go for influence and power.
There will always be bloggers seeking those things and believe that is a good thing.
I find the Blogdom of God is kind of in a loop of self linking, and you are required to promote others in the group.
Yes, that’s exactly what I don’t like. You are supposed to promote others in the group coz the inbound links will help to push them up in the TLB Ecosystem. It was one of the reasons why I declined to join the Blogdom. I rarely link for the sake of linking.
My personal belief is that we do not need to seek after influence and power, whether in the electronic world or the corporate working world. If God wants to move you up, He’ll move you up. You need only be available & willing. Look at Esther. One day a nobody, next thing you know, she’s queen of Persia…
Bene
Just to say no one in the Blogdom is required to link to more than a handful of other christian blogs- in fact the truth be told I dont even police that entry requirement that vigorously. Also, whilst some people want to create a Christian Instapundit, I dont. I would far rather that a number of christian blogs became well known and that all of them were easy to find posts from (hence the aggregators which are almost the opposite of the idea of an instapundit)
Also, it is only selfish ambition that is a sin- ambition for the group as a whole and/or for others is fine. There are many christian bloggers out there who I believe deserve a greater audience than mine and I do everything I can to send that audience to those blogs. Part of being a blogger is being a signpost to send your readers to other blogs- I cant see why that is a problem to a small group of christian bloggers.
Guys, I just want the God blogs as a group to be well read and to pass their traffic around between them- is that so wrong?
*Also, it is only selfish ambition that is a sin- ambition for the group as a whole and/or for others is fine.*
Sin?
I’m not going to spiritualize or get into religious ideation here.
I have to question that statement.
*Ambition for the group as a whole and/or for others is fine.*
That is partially true. but it isn’t either/or.
To see that as an absolute is a bit scary don’t you think? Ask any recovering cult member.
Ambition:
1. The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.
2. An eager, and sometimes an inordinate, desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power, or the attainment of something.
3. To seek after ambitiously or eagerly; to covet.
I don’t want to see you misrepresented, feel free to correct any perceived misconception.
There are a lot of people with the same goal - and aggregators are just the latest tool.
You’d have to define ‘well-known’ to me. Well known to whom and why?
I don’t doubt an aggregator makes it easy to find posts from. But I question if it would be any easier than a search engine - a blog search engine or a google. I certainly stand to be corrected on that.
I don’t think there will ever be a ‘Christian Instapundit’ either, (blogged about that a couple of years ago) but I don’t doubt a lot of people will keep trying.:^)
I applaud your effort to get traffic to other blogs. I think an aggregator is merely one way of many to do so. At the end of a cyber-day all you can really do is encourage the people reading and writing the blogs to reach out to others. Readers make up their own minds. Blog on!