I’m starting a series on social media soon, but man, ……… does this take the wind out of your sails, as you really have to study your subject to be able to clearly communicate it to your readership. I mean, I know how to use Twitter, but to explain it to a newbie is challenging from the standpoint of the days time management. So I am going to fall back on some reviews this week about Blogging Tools.

MyBlogLog is a Yahoo service, that at first site seems to be a competitor of Google’s Blogger. However, MyBlogLog is a social media site of sorts, in that it helps people find or hook-up with Blogs that are of interest to them. It almost seems like a Facebook for Bloggers. MyBlogLog was purchased from Cloudspace by Yahoo in January 2007 after Cloudspace sought venture capital at a Web 2.0 conference and attracted the attention of Toby Coppel and other members of Yahoo Mangement.

I’ve not really used this service, which kinda gets back to my comments above, but it would appear that Yahoo, is trying to do a kinder, gentler type of social media here by trying to discourage the traffic hounds, who like me and probably you, just sign-up for social media services for the traffic exposure. I know that sounds kinda harsh, but it’s kinda hard to party all day and night while trying to make a living at Blogging. Even if you could you still would not have enough hours in the day to get around to all the really great social media sites, let alone the interesting sites that hold promise.

MyBlogLog is a social network for the blogger community that is based in part on interactions facilitated by a popular web widget that many members install on their blog. Bloggers sign up for free accounts on MyBlogLog and can initiate a blog community for one or more blogs they author. Other registered members can subscribe to these communities, effectively bookmarking them for future reading and sharing them with their own contacts. Bloggers can then display widgets on their sites which show MyBlogLog online community members who have recently visited their page. These widgets also contain links to visiting members’ community pages, and are one way in which users connect with one another. All members can see certain basic information about how many people visit their blog, what links they clicked and where they come from. Members may also view more extensive information about traffic on their site for a monthly fee. (Great one more monthly fee!)

MyBlogLog communities revolve around an individual blog registered by that blog’s author. These communities have anywhere from just a few to thousands of members. Communities that are particularly popular, have the most members or that are brand new are featured on the MyBlogLog Communities page. Members can also find communities via searches for key words or tags.

MyBlogLog members are displayed and searchable in a largely similar fashion to MyBlogLog communities. Featured, popular and new members are displayed on the MyBlogLog members page. Users can also search for members and get a sense of who they are by seeing which communities they are a member of and what tags have been associated to their profile by the MyBlogLog community.

Sounds kinda convoluted to me, I’m not really sure, but you should at least check it out when you have the time, if for no other reason than to gain experience as a Blogger.