Just about ready to launch this one, need some opinions from the forum

[Harold Mansfield]

I said that I was going to build 3 of these..this was the 3rd idea that I had. I actually saw that someone else had the idea an implemented it 2 months ago, but just put up a basic feed reader..nothing like this.

It's another niche MU Blogging Community site. This one has a few more things that the others, like Video Tutorials, 175+ themes, including 40 or so licensed from Woo...and some other stuff that I will apply to the other 2, (which I haven't begun to promote yet).

This one is straight out Pay To Blog. I'm not messing around with splogs and spammers anymore, however, all of the community features are open to everyone for free..so authors with existing blogs can add them to the directory with all of their other information and RSS feed.

I'm also incorporating micro blogging into this one...I'm looking into a small micro platform for it as well.

Let me know what you think.
New York Blogs | The Pulse of New York Trends, Lifestyle and Current Events (http://nyblogs.net/)

[Spider]

Looks very professional to me. It "speaks to me" of New York, even though I've never been there.

[KristineS]

Looks good. I'll be interested to see what sort of bloggers sign up here.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'll be interested to see what sort of bloggers sign up here.

Yeah, me too.:)

If I can get bloggers to just register and create a profile for thier blogs, it will be a step in the right direction.

Out of the 3, I think I'm going to go with this one first. I put more stuff on this one and learned how to improve the others in the process. I think the key to making this work is being able to integrate members existing social networking updates Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and micro platforms like Tumblr, into this platform (and in reverse) ...once I get that squared away it will be a whole new world...close, but I don't have it just yet...maybe by the end of the week.

@Spider, thanks that's what I was hoping to hear.

[Harold Mansfield]

Yeah, me too.:)
I think the key to making this work is being able to integrate members existing social networking updates Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and micro platforms like Tumblr, into this platform (and in reverse) .

Got the Facebook Connect thing going so that member activity is shared between the two platforms and I think I'll leave it at that.

Everyone auto posts to Twitter now, and I don't see the need to waste additional bandwidth to do something that is probably redundant.
Besides, it's easier for me to write a step by step tutorial that any member can read, on how to connect all of your profiles than to add all of that onto the network.

I figure Facebook is the most important one right now and almost everyone has Facebook to Twitter.

[Harold Mansfield]

So few things have come up and I need some opinions.
First:
Since around the 2nd or 3rd day I lifted the maintenance window and put the site live, traffic went from 12 visits a day (mostly from posting it here) to an average of 700-800 visits a day and has been steady over the last week and a half.

Of course I haven't done anything yet to promote it, I'm just taking this as a bonus, however, I have only gotten a few sign ups.

That's not good.

So, nagging me in the back of my mind is this thought:


"Anyone who doesn't have a blog by now either doesn't want one, doesn't know how to set one up and it's not a pressing issue or doesn't have a lot to blog about and doesn't really need a full time blog".

So how do you get people blogging that have never done it, or just need someplace to post occasionally?

The free trials aren't working and I am not doing free blogs, so I came up with a community blog idea. Where members of the group have automatic author privileges (admin approval of all posts of course).

It's basically "No Risk" blogging, by the community. No tech knowledge. No pressure to blog regularly. You contribute when you have something to say.

Of course you are listed as the author ( with an authors bio box in the post and by line). Your blog activity is reflected in your profile and of course you can promote and link to your articles, your blog log, or your profile from anywhere.

Pretty much Open Blogging.
The premise is that people will get familiar with the platform, and promoting their articles on the site and a few will register their own blogs.

So I came up with a little brand Blabb It New York | The Open Community Current Events Blog (http://blabbit.nyblogs.net/) for it. (just in case it works, I also have Blabb.it if I want to take it step further..I thought it was a cool domain :)).

Any thoughts on this or other ideas?

Just to add:
I'm working out a simple registration, step by step instructions and a quick video tutorial for making a post.
It should be painless. Register with basic info to get started, log in and publish.