A description of my blog. http://www.my-site.com 4591124361259097773 2007/05/#4591124361259097773 2007-05-24

Hey, can he do that? Give a shout-out to his own site? This is like that time he made himself the featured blogger on humor-blogs.com. Man, this guy has a big head. What? Oh, why didn't you say so? I didn't realize this is what they meant by "synergy." Carry on.

When I first started blogging, I read that one of the ways to promote one's blog was to submit it to blog directories. So one day I spent several hours submitting my site to every blog directory I could find, and then I sat back and watched the hit roll in.

The fact is, blog directories suck. Mostly they are just lists of blogs in order by the amount of traffic that they drive to the blog directory site. Essentially they're popularity contests: Popular blogs get ranked higher, so they get more clicks, so they get more traffic, so they refer more traffic to the blog directory site, so they get ranked higher.... It's like a movie review website that tells you, "You should go see Spider-Man 3. Lots of other people have seen it, and some of them even liked it." Thanks.

So I did what I do whenever a game is going against me: I changed the rules. I created my own blog directory site, and set it up to show excerpts from five of the funniest bloggers I knew. Then I issued an open invitation for anyone with a humor-oriented blog to join.

Humor-blogs.com now has nearly 200 members, and it keeps growing. It's been so successful, in fact, that it's in danger of becoming just another blog directory. I had always planned on developing some kind of system for objectively ranking blogs by quality, but I hadn't figured on needing to do it so soon. Anita from Say No to Crack pointed me to Bloglaughs, which utilized a group of reviewers to rank funny blogs in various areas. I contacted the owner of the site and arranged to use Bloglaughs' scores to rank blogs on humor-blogs.com. Then the owner of the site decided to close up shop, and I was stuck with an ever-growing list of blogs and no way to rank them in any sensible order.

I know, some of you are probably thinking, "Just display them in random order. That way everybody gets a chance." Well, screw that. I want to reward smart, funny bloggers who aren't getting enough publicity, and I want to help readers find those bloggers. And I want lousy, unoriginal bloggers who think they're funny but aren't to go do something more productive with their time.

So what I ended up doing is stealing the Bloglaughs review system (and reviewers), automating the process a bit, and relaunching it as part of humor-blogs.com (well, I guess it's not really stealing since I did it with the blessing of Bloglaughs). Every blog on humor-blogs.com has a score, which is determined 50% by referrals to humor-blogs.com and 50% by the tabulated reviewer score. Every blog's reviewer score has been set to a default of 50 (on a scale of 1 to 100), and the blogger can keep that default score if they don't want to be reviewed.

Gradually, the reviewers will be working their way through all the bloggers who have asked to be reviewed (3 blogs per week), so in a few weeks the list of blogs should be sorted in some vague relation to quality. And no, I haven't figured out yet how or if I'm going to get Mattress Police reviewed, since it would be pretty hard to ensure objectivity. I'll figure something out eventually.

Why am I boring you with all this? Well, first of all I need more reviewers. I've got about 30 active reviewers right now, and I'd like to get several more. The more reviewers, the more objective the reviewing process is. So if you'd like to be a reviewer, please send me an email at diesel -at- mattresspolice.com. There are no special qualifications, and no minimum number of blogs to review. You don't have to have a blog or anything. Just an appreciation for funny blogs and a minimal grasp of the English language.

Second, if you have a funny blog please feel free to join by going to the signup page. If you want to join AND become a reviewer (and my NBFF), you can specify that on the signup page (well, not the NBFF part; that's implied).

Finally, thanks to all the reviewers who have submitted reviews of the first three blogs queued up for review! You guys really took your job seriously and provided some great feedback. You will begin to see the fruits of your labor early next week....

I'll be back tomorrow with a post that has less words. In the mean time, if you want to hear something really funny, check out Spicy Pony Head at Central Snark. You'll thank me.

Diesel out.


Did I mention humor-blogs.com?

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