Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt » Tracking Your Contribution to the Blogosphere

Glenda Watson Hyatt shares her experiences living with cerebral palsy to motivate and inspire others to think about how they perceive their own situation and their own world around them. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb!

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Tracking Your Contribution to the Blogosphere

Filed under: Blogging — by Glenda at 11:08 am on Monday, November 26, 2007

The blogosphere is all about building relationships. One great way to build those relationships and to contribute back to the blogosphere is to comment on other blogs.

A few weeks ago, I had set a goal for 2008: to comment on ten blogs per week; five comments on blogs I had previously commented on to further strengthen those relationships, and five comments on new-to-me blogs to expand my network by forming new relationships. Reading posts by Tara Kachaturoff and Caroline Middlebrook confirmed my goal was sensible; that spending time commenting on other blogs isn’t another time-waster, it is actual work!

But, I was stumped on how I would easily track where I had commented. The easier and quicker the method, the more likely I will keep it up and reach my goal by year’s end. Tara kindly suggested creating a spreadsheet for tracking the blog names that I comment on.

I have created the Excel spreadsheet and offer it here to assist with tracking your blogosphere contributions and reaching your commenting goals for 2008. (Left click on the image to open the spreadsheet or right click to â€˜Save Asâ€™ to your computer.)

To use, enter the blog’s name (e.g. Do It Myself Blog) or main URL (e.g. www.doitmyselfblog.com) and then tally your comments for the week. A running total will be calculated near the bottom of the spreadsheet. In theory, using Excel’s sorting function can determine the number of times you have posted to a particular blog. I have yet to test whether the sorting function works for this particular purpose, so I’d welcome any feedback or tips on using this feature.

This spreadsheet is intended as a starting point. Feel free to tweak or customize as needed, and then share any changes in a comment below in case they may also benefit others.

Blog on!

If you enjoyed this post, consider buying me a chai tea latte. Thanks kindly.

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Comment by Jim Kukral

November 26, 2007 @ 11:26 am

Very cool idea and resource. Thanks!

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Comment by Doug McCaughan

November 26, 2007 @ 12:02 pm

You may find CoComments useful. I don’t use it anymore because I was having memory problems and thought that maybe the FireFox plugin was contributing to my problems. However, I really enjoyed having one place to track all my comments and activity on the web. The really nice thing about CoComments is that you know when someone has replied.

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Comment by Joanna Young

November 26, 2007 @ 2:42 pm

Hi Glenda

For me, commenting is the best part of blogging. I’m still learning how best to keep track – I experimented with co-comments because I had memory problems (inside my head) but like Doug found it was slowing my machine down (with the other sort of memory problem) and switched it off. Also it doesn’t work for all blogs.

Mike Sansone has a review of other tracking mechanisms up today, with some discussion of how to keep track.

http://www.converstations.com/2007/11/tracking-your-c.html

I don’t think I could face a spreadsheet – I’d never be bothered to fill it in… I know I have 10 – 15 blogs where I go regularly for conversation (so don’t need to remember to go back) – others I keep a note of the link on a writeboard so I can click and check to see if there’s a reply (if there is = start of a conversation, if there isn’t = probably the end)

Which was the other point I was going to make – I like the idea of goals, and of widening your network – but the time when commenting works worst for me is when I feel I ‘should’ or ‘must’ (like if I’m ghost blogging) – the time when it’s fun is to comment just because you feel a sense of connection with what’s been written, no matter how small, how tucked away that little blog might be, in some small corner of the blogosphere…

Good luck with your blogging goal anyway – and remember you can always strike one new blog off your list by coming by to say hi to me!

Joanna

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Comment by Tim King

November 26, 2007 @ 3:54 pm

Hi, Glenda. When I comment on someone else’s blog, I subscribe to the RSS comments feed for that post. I have a special folder in my feed reader for comments, and I put the comments subscription in that folder. That makes it easy to keep up on follow-up comments.

-TimK

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Comment by Glenda

November 26, 2007 @ 7:47 pm

Thanks Doug and Joanna for your feedback on CoComments. I didn’t even know these services existed – still much to learn!

Reading Mike Sansone’s post, it sounds like Co.Mments is another possibility. If you’ve used it, your opinion is most welcomed.

And Joanna, excellent point about by making commenting a “must do”, some of the enjoyment may be lost. Definitely something to keep in mind as I (and others) proceed with commenting goals.

Tim, great idea! That may be simpler than a spreadsheet. I guess that means I should bite the bullet and set up a real RSS reader; I’ve been using Yahoo! Any recommendations?

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Comment by Tim King

November 27, 2007 @ 12:13 am

I use Vienna on my MacBook, but I don’t know that it’s the best. At some point I may switch to a different app, if I encounter one that meets my needs better. I found it by asking Google. 🙂

-TimK

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Comment by Tara Kachaturoff

November 27, 2007 @ 5:30 am

Glenda:
I love to see that you put my suggestion into play – so glad I could help. And so happy that you have shared this wonderful resource with all of our friends in the blogosphere. Outstanding!

Kind Regards,
Tara Kachaturoff

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Comment by Doug McCaughan

November 27, 2007 @ 6:29 am

I use http://sharpreader.net/ and am very pleased. I tried using Google Reader but just couldn’t get into it.

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Comment by Buzzing with Ange

November 29, 2007 @ 4:14 pm

This is great Glenda! The community building I mean and commenting on others blogs and to actually set a goal for it!! You know you are always welcome at Buzzing with Ange 🙂

Google reader may be another that you could consider, or even Bloglines. Just thinking out loud.

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Comment by Zena Weist

November 30, 2007 @ 8:26 am

Found your blog through a Chris Brogan tweet. Loved this post and I’ve learned a lot about tracking through it and your readers’ comments.

Cheers,
Zena

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Comment by kumar

January 12, 2008 @ 1:44 am

I found a facebook App, go4it. It helps track our goals. It also has the concept of “going forward” as you suggested. I had added a goal for my self “Make a blog” but never worked on it. But after reading this I think I should change it to “Make a good blog in 1 week”.

Cheers
Kumar

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Comment by Sally S.

April 14, 2011 @ 8:58 pm

“The blogosphere is all about building relationships. One great way to build those relationships and to contribute back to the blogosphere is to comment on other blogs.”

This is me trying to contribute to the blogosphere. 🙂 I will try to follow the suggestions above and keep track of everything.

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Comment by Edward Smith

April 27, 2011 @ 10:42 am

This is one of the best blogs that I have read in a while. I also enjoy commenting on blogs because I like the interaction with people from all walks of life. I looked at your spreadsheet and I think that you did a fantastic job on creating it.

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