I tried repeatedly yesterday to log into bloggingzoom and it just didn’t work out. I thought it was a typical maintenance or something of that kind. But it seems it was cracked. Cortney Tuttle ascribes this act to the fact that
BloggingZoom is growing very quickly and that obviously poses a threat to quite a few different people. I’m not going to name any names but there are a few different groups and individuals that would stand to benefit if they could slow down the growth of the site.
A couple of bloggers have also posted about this, but it seems there hasn’t been a big fuss about it. Digg didn’t have any post about it (I just submitted one), stumbleUpon’s post was liked by 13 people and I just posted the subject on mixx. I wonder why.
Maybe BloggingZoom isn’t the kind of site that will bring waves of traffic to your blog, but the community is serious enough and is really participating in the blogging process.
By participating I mean, that users are actually reading the posts, subscribing and adding comments. Something that happens very seldom in digg for example. Also the fact that a submitter must write an at least 350letter description, speaks for the earnestness of the users.
Anyway, hope they get out of the problem soon.
Just a small footnote here: Hackers are people who enjoy exploring the potential of software and technology without any malicious intent. Crackers are the nasty ones.
RT Cunningham responded on 25 Jan 2008 at 2:08 pm #
You won’t hear too much about it at other social sites because this is the competition. I won’t be surprised if the Digg post you submitted picks up very little steam or gets buried before it can get a whole lot of diggs.
Paul M. Banas responded on 25 Jan 2008 at 2:40 pm #
Since I’m not familiar with BloggingZoom and I can’t access the site (still down probably), could you post a few more details on what exactly it is and how it’s different from other content communities out there?
PMB
RT Cunningham responded on 25 Jan 2008 at 3:11 pm #
I’ll speak out of turn on this one. BloggingZoom is about “zooming” blogs, king of like diggers digging posts on Digg. The difference is that it’s focused on blogs and not other kinds of websites. No mainstream media, no static websites, or anything like that.
Does it make it better? For bloggers, yes it does. For anyone else, probably not. The better part is not really because of the service itself but because of the sense of community that it imparts. Not only that, but the service creates backlinks for each and every blog article posted.
Paul M. Banas responded on 25 Jan 2008 at 3:15 pm #
@RT Cunningham
Thanks for the overview. Sound interesting. I hope it gets back up soon so I can check it out.
PMB
robojiannis responded on 25 Jan 2008 at 3:16 pm #
@RT Cunningham
I thought it wouldn’t get much attention, but I also hoped (and still do) that users are above community driven initiatives. In SU for example, the post goes pretty well…
@PMB
Well BloggingZoom is one more community like digg, SU, Mixx and so on. The differences are:
1. at least in most cases, people submit their own content, namely the content of their blog. The community then votes (zooms!) on the content.
2. Although comments on the submission are available, I have seldomly seen a large discussion on a subject.
3. To submit content you have to write a unique description of at least 350 letters. No copy & paste.
4. A post becomes popular after 5 zooms. I haven’t seen a post get more than 30-40 zooms.
My impression is, that zoomers may not communicate much in the community (not so much comments, etc) but they show interest on the blog post. The post comments very often and they subscribe very often.
It is actually a nice, cozy community. I’m glad I found while it’s still new and upcoming. I would suggest taking a look at it.