In the world of too many “me too”-type companies, I’m wondering why more companies don’t isolate the NEED before going head-to-head with an established competitor? There are social networks cropping up, there are video sharing sites and all manner of other internet start ups that are trying to play in the same game as another company that’s already doing a good job. People are making iPhone and Android apps that do the exact same thing as another one, and we wonder why people complain about all the “noise” out there.
It’s all noise, that’s the problem
One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure. So even the top blogs are noise to some people. What helps turn the volume down more than anything else are great search tools and great aggregation tools. I think that Google Reader is a pretty damn good aggregator. What’s missing is a really…I mean REALLY good blog search engine / directory.
There are hundreds of different blog directories out there. What we need, is the Facebook of blog directories.
I can get 33 different “call-a-taxi” apps on my iPhone. I can use 10-15 different Twitter dashboard desktop and/or web applications. I have virtually limitless options for GTD / task management software. Why is it that I can’t find one blog directory that just makes it easy? So far Alltop is doing a great job but the goal of Alltop is to be a destination not a directory or search engine. Google blog search is ok, icerocket is ok, and I personally don’t like Technorati all that much.
What’s needed…
What is it that I’m not getting? Why am I dissatisfied?
- It’s fairly easy to find a list of the “top 10 blogs” on Social Media.
- It’s fairly easy to find a list of the “top 10 blogs” on Marketing or Public Relations.
- It’s not easy to find the top 10 blogs in Philadelphia, that review products, primarily technology / gadgets, sorted by site traffic.
- It’s not easy to find the top 50 blogs about Water Conservation in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut sorted by state and then number of retweets.
- It’s pretty difficult to find the 10 must “dugg” sites about Windows Software or iPad apps sorted by inbound links.
Why is this all important?
There are two main reasons that this is important besides just making it easier for people to find exactly what they want, and bringing extra traffic to lesser known blogs.
1) For PR Professionals
Public relations and Journalism are changing….rapidly. News and opinion are taking place online more and more and in paper less and less. PR Professionals, accustomed to pitching journalists, have a process. Finding out about readership and demographic are a natural part of the process. Knowing where the publication is distributed is essential. These are things that are much more difficult to discern online…surprisingly.
Having a centralized blog directory will help make the PR process easier for everyone.
2) For Bloggers
As a blogger myself, I despise having to add my blog to hundreds of different blog directories. It’s tedious. Furthermore, I search optimize my posts, I shouldn’t have to tell the directories or search engines what it’s about. What I say it’s about and what its actually about may be different animals entirely. The flip side is that I like the idea of my posts being more easily discovered. It’s a double-edged sword. It would be so much easier to just submit my blog to one big directory that was the “go-to” spot.
There’s also the issue of blogger influence. If bloggers are becoming more influential as time goes on and news shifts online then PR professionals will need to reach out to bloggers more often. Having a comprehensive directory allows PR pros to isolate exactly where they need to pitch a certain message for individual clients.
Beyond that I’ve been approached by numerous advertisers about selling ad space on my blog. I haven’t done that yet, because quite frankly I hate advertisements and I don’t want to subject anyone to ads on my blog. That may change at some point but for now I don’t do ads. However some small bloggers may want to be considered and right now many of them can’t even be found.
What it looks like:
So now that I’ve complained while building my case for this new type of search engine / directory, what would it look like?
You would be able to search for any topic the results would come back ranked by site traffic. Topic results would be determined by a combination of : Titles, Tags, Categories, Descriptions. Rank and popularity would be determined by Site Traffic, Subscribers (both RSS and Email), Comments and Social Activity. All bloggers would be required to provide some method to contact them…Email, Contact Form on Blog, Twitter, etc.
After site traffic, you can narrow results by:
- Last Updated (to determine most active blogs)
- Top 5 Topics (Tags / Categories)
- Top 5 Tags (What are the top 5 most used since the inception of the blog)
- Location (Where is the blogger located or where is the blog about)
- Readership (Average Daily Readership, Total Number of Readers, Subscribers, etc)
- Bloggers that can be contacted by Twitter
Now maybe all of this information isn’t available but I think there is a strong need for “The Facebook of Blog Directories.”
