Socially Building the Blogroll
If you notice the sidebar of this blog, you’ll see my blogroll looks a little anemic: only a couple links there in no particular order, some related, some not. Instead of throwing a bunch of links up to sites and blogs I visit often and/or love, I figured it would mean more to YOU if I added these things organically. Or, more to the point, socially.
If you’re anything like me, you visit blogs and any other website with an RSS feed and, if you like them, you check out their blogrolls to see what else you may be interested in. This was the 1.0 version of the Web, back when content creators simply blasted shit out into the ether via their platforms, caring not who was paying attention. Blogrolls were one of those methods: endless lists of the author’s favorite sites, people, etc.
Image by inju via Flickr
I’m taking a different approach. Must. Be. AWESOME!‘s blogroll is gonna be just that: AWESOME. Each link will track back to something I’ve either written about or linked to within a post. This way, it will develop naturally and organically. I hope this will create a steady buildup to a larger list of good, productive content on the actual site that people will come back, check out from time to time, and perhaps add to their own RSS readers or newstreams.
Today, I know a bunch of y’all are reading Must. Be. AWESOME! through an RSS aggregator or other service. You may not be coming back to the main site every day. This is OK. While I would love it if you came back all the time and participated in comments discussions, I understand that it can be hassle. No worries, I won’t hate ya for it. But hopefully, every so often when you DO come back, I’ll have some cool new links for you in the blogroll section.
If you’re someone who wants on the Must. Be. AWESOME! blogroll, I only have one piece of advice for you: be social. What’s so great about the internet of today is that I get to feel like I have personal relationships with anyone I interact with. If you’re looking to advertise or sponsor something on my blog, I at least want to get taken on a date first. Talk to me. Socialize with me. Be human. You’ll thank me for it in the long run.
[An addendum: I understand that the formatting for a lot of the text on the sidebar looks kinda dopey and can be hard to read when it runs over a single line. I'm working on fixes, but if anyone out there is a WordPress theme master and wants to help out, I'd love to have you on board. 
I freely admit my XHTML and CSS skills are totally weak.]
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