DISQUS

JayCruz · 9 months ago

It's definitely lost its power for the reasons you mention like linking to Twitter and sharing feeds. Another reason why it has lost it's power is because of the buddy-blogger-link exchange-thing. Readers learned to ignore that part of the sidebar because it got too cumbersome. I still like the idea though, but that's because I'm kind of "old school". :)

Mark Dykeman · 9 months ago

I'm going to try to be more conscious of blogrolls for the next little while - it's unfortunate that sometimes they fall into that gray area of perception that we tend to block out (e.g. ads)

Ari Herzog · 9 months ago

I'm in the process of creating a blogroll, but not for the sidebar. Rather as a top navigational link.

Mark Dykeman · 9 months ago

Won't that still encounter the same problems, though?

kosovodad · 9 months ago

Excellent point, and it makes a larger point about the use of social media as a whole. For too many people, SM have become an objective, not a tool. We want a blog because "that's what people are doing now" not because we can articulate what we want to do with it.

The blogroll is one of those things that became like your appendix; maybe necessary at one time, but perhaps evolution has caused its usefulness to pass?

--Mike

Mark Dykeman · 9 months ago

Maybe, but a blogroll is a lot easier to remove than an appendix. :)

Beth Robinson · 9 months ago

A blogroll as a social tool may be being replaced - but as a list of resources and other things your readers might like I don't think it will go away. I may not click through to a blog very often, but when I do I really appreciate seeing suggestions from the blogger of where else I might like to go. I prefer it when the list is short and relevant or when it's broken into categories. Mine is set up with annotations and reached through a navigation link. It does need to be updated though...

Mark Dykeman · 9 months ago

Agreed on the ongoing need for resources, etc.

kosovodad · 9 months ago

Another thought might be to set it up like Facebook ... instead of your entire blogroll, you have a list of "3 other blogs I enjoy" and every time you refresh the page 3 new random blogs show up from your blogroll.

The up-side for those ON your BR is that they are more likely to actually get a referral from your website. For you, you save the space and build even better relationships with your BR-ers because you have figure out a way to ACTUALLY push some traffic their way.

Like so many other times, if we take a little time to ask ourselves, "Blogrolls ... what problem are we really trying to solve here?" some interesting answers come about.

--Mike

Jon Allen · 8 months ago

It's an interesting discussion. Someone just reviewed my blog and one of his comments was that I had too many links on my blog roll! I've got over 200 links to blogs and other resources that I think people might be interested in when they visit my blog.

I review my blog roll on a fairly regular basis, and I'm sure there are a few there that need purging, but I think they are all valid links. I subscribe to most of the blogs on my blog roll, but not all.

I'd guess about half my readers get the posts via RSS, but the other half come from search engines and they will be seeing the blog roll, so I think it's a very important resource and I won't be cutting down on the number of entries.
If anything I plan to add even more blogs as I find them.

Mark Dykeman · 8 months ago

200 does seem like a lot, but whatever works for you. :)