March 2010
1 post
1 tag
Leaving BlogCatalog
It’s been an interesting 3 years taking blogcatalog from a tiny blog directory to a massive blogger social network to where it is today. I am truly lucky to have worked with such a great group of individuals and will sorely miss them as I move on to pursue other ventures. thank you all for everything.
Mar 22nd
December 2009
1 post
1 tag
Staying Busy
It’s been pretty quiet on the BC front since we returned from BlogWorld Expo. The BC team is hard at work on creating some new features and designs that will reinvent the way you use BlogCatalog. We are even migrating the BlogCatalog codebase to a more scalable framework to increase reliability as we launch new features. So stay tuned because you may see an all new BlogCatalog as soon as...
Dec 7th
July 2009
1 post
3 tags
New Database Server
We recently added another database server to help alleviate the load on our current servers and speedup our recent readers widget.
Jul 20th
May 2009
1 post
8 tags
BlogCatalog Blog Bar Beta
We have a new feature on BlogCatalog rolling out sitewide this weeked that we have developed to make it easier for BlogCatalog readers to share, rate, and comment on BlogCatalog blogs. The new BlogCatalog Blog Bar gives readers a chance to learn more about you through your BlogCatalog Profile as well as find blogs on related topics from our directory of hundreds of thousands of blogs.
May 8th
April 2009
1 post
3 tags
Ghost Avatars
For anyone on BlogCatalog who may have noticed that their old avatar stuck around in a few places after uploading a newer one, we released an update this past friday that should resolve the issue. If you continue to have problems please contact BlogCatalog.
Apr 6th
March 2009
2 posts
Mar 20th
3 tags
BlogCatalog 5.0
It’s hard to believe just how far BlogCatalog has come. In the next few days we will be launching version 5.0 of BlogCatalog and we are super excited about it. Not to worry though, we didn’t move very many things around, just cleaned up the site’s theme and widened the layout to make way for some bigger features we are working on. The new BlogCatalog is a sleeker and simplified...
Mar 5th
February 2009
1 post
7 tags
Bloggers Unite Launches
The BlogCatalog Team is proud to preset the all new Bloggers Unite! http://www.bloggersunite.org/
Feb 24th
January 2009
1 post
2 tags
Bloggers Unite!
If you have been wondering why I have been neglecting this blog for so long, I assure it’s not because of inactivity. The BlogCatalog Team has been hard at work getting Bloggers Unite ready for it’s beta launch. With the launch less than a week away you are going to want to make sure you sign up to be notified at http://www.bloggersunite.org/. We are really proud of this new site and...
Jan 30th
December 2008
1 post
8 tags
Activity Feed Sharing Returns
When we first rolled out our social streaming features oh so long ago, we gave users the ability to share and comment on their friends activities. We removed the feature due to performance reasons a few months after we launched, however, as of today we have re-introduced the feature to our activity feeds.  You should now see little stars next to certain activity items from your friends and in the...
Dec 10th
November 2008
2 posts
6 tags
The BlogCatalog 360 Search Widget
Last week we launched a new search widget for bloggers that allows visitors to search a blog’s content as well as the authors social activity without leaving the blog. You can check out the widget at: http://www.blogcatalog.com/widgets. This is great for any platforms such as tumblr and blogspot where search is sometimes lacking. Check out the widget in action and read a review over...
Nov 17th
3 tags
Updated Blog Rating System
In a long overdue update, we have done away with the one-click star ratings on our blog detail pages. Over the past few weeks several members have expressed their distaste for the one-click ratings, citing it as a way for other members to unfairly rate down their blogs. Ratings are now generated solely based on the written reviews of the blog. This allows all ratings to be clearly visible as well...
Nov 8th
October 2008
4 posts
6 tags
All Eyes on Me
It’s always interesting to see who users choose to be their top friends. However, when i came across Erik van Erne’s top friends i was even more intrigued as i now had 10 eyeballs staring right at me.  Anyone have any insight as to why a blogger’s eye is one of the most common avatars on BC?
Oct 25th
4 tags
Bloggers Unite Beta
If you havent already, sign up to be notified when the all new Bloggers Unite launches at: http://www.bloggersunite.org/
Oct 20th
6 tags
BlogCatalog Search Goes Live
The new BlogCatalog search is now live and cranking away and finding the best content on BlogCatalog. Check it out: http://www.blogcatalog.com/search
Oct 8th
8 tags
BlogCatalog Search [beta]
Over the last 2 weeks, the BlogCatalog Team has been hard at work redesigning the way search works on our site. We will be launching a new search in the next few days that combines all of our searches into one easy to use search. Our new search will search all of our blogs, posts, user activity streams, usernames, and discussions and place them all on one convenient page. Finding great content has...
Oct 3rd
September 2008
6 posts
We've Moved
As of now you can now find the tigerbeat at tigerbeat.blogcatalog.com
Sep 26th
8 tags
In The Works
This last month or so The BC team has been working twice as hard trying to bring new features and improvements to the site. As always, we have quite a few great things coming down the pipeline, with a big focus on how we can help our members become better bloggers and generate more buzz for their blog. So while i can’t get to into the specifics i will say that in the next few weeks we will...
Sep 16th
3 tags
BlogCatalog's Most Talkative: Still Talking
We have seen a lot of faces come and go in the BlogCatalog Discussions over the last few months as well as many changes to the general dynamic of the community. But I’m always glad to see that there are those who take advantage of the power that the discussions can bring as well as take every opportunity to help their fellow bloggers. With that in mind, I thought I would revive an algorithm...
Sep 15th
2 tags
Discussions of the Week
The BlogCatalog discussion forums can be a pretty fast paced place at times. This week alone we had over 700 new topics started almost 9000 comments. With all that activty I thought I would try and take a look at the numbers each week and post the top 10 discussion created. Here are this week’s most popular discussions I’d like to see your BC avatar large! by polybore Why is...
Sep 8th
5 tags
Sep 6th
5 tags
Sep 3rd
August 2008
5 posts
3 tags
How to Create your own BlogCatalog Widget via the... →
Chris Cagle has written up a great tutorial for using the API to create your own widget. It’s a great read for anyone wanting to play around with the BC API. We are also working on a new BlogCatalog API, so if you have any requests or suggestions, please let me know!
Aug 23rd
2 tags
BlogCatalog Appreciation Day
Our good friend Chris has declared today BlogCatalog Appreciation Day. Participating is easy, (1) simply blog about Blogcatalog today, August 15th and (2) Invite at least 1 person you know who blogs and get them to check out BlogCatalog. If you need some ideas as to what to blog about, you can check out long time BlogCatalog member ThriftShopRomantic’s BlogCatalog Appreciation Day Barbecue....
Aug 15th
4 tags
Alan Weinkrantz: S.A. companies trying to ride the... →
Alan Weinkrantz makes a brief mention of BlogCatalog’s new mobile site in his column for the San Antonio Express News.
Aug 9th
4 tags
Are You Using SezWho On Your Blog? →
John Dilbeck shares his experience with the BlogCatalog SezWho Widget.
Aug 9th
2 tags
Dashboard Updates
We are currently rolling out some updates to the BlogCatalog Dashboard that should improve performance significantly. This update includes: Decreased load time for your dashboard You may now follow up to 50 of your friends You can now go back 5 pages in your dashboard’s history You can now see your own activity in your dashboard
Aug 7th
July 2008
8 posts
4 tags
Should Shoutboxes Be Friends Only?
One of the nice things about twitter is that for the most part you don’t see a lot of spam in your updates because you get to pick who you follow. So as long as you are careful you you let into your circle, spammers really have no way at you unless one of the people you are follwing starts using twitterfeed, which i consider as annoying as spam. The BlogCatalog shoutboxes are somewhat...
Jul 29th
2 tags
Jul 21st
6 tags
BlogCatalog Mobile: Sneak Peak
As I mentioned last week, I have been hard at work at a iPhone webapp for BlogCatalog to make it easier to use while on the road. I thought I would take a moment to invite anyone reading this blog (is anyone reading this blog?) to test out the mobile site at: http://mobile.blogcatalog.com Our mobile site pulls out the core functionality of the regular site and puts it into a format more...
Jul 20th
2 tags
Image Migration
BlogCatalog is currently in the process of moving some of our user images around. The process should be fairly transparent but if you see any missing images please be patient as some DNS entries may be late to propagate. [update 12:00PM]: It appears Amzon S3 is currently experiencing problems which has broken some of the images on BlogCatalog. This is not related to the image migration. [update...
Jul 20th
2 tags
Twitter Issues
We are currently having isues aggregating twiter statuses on BlogCatalog. We are working to resolve these issues and hope to have all statuses synced by sunday morning. [update]: Tiwtter finally whitelisted us and updates are rolling in again.
Jul 19th
3 tags
Upcoming: BlogCatalog Mobile
We have a lot of projects in the works at BlogCatalog, but one of the things i am most excited about, and engulfed in, is porting BlogCatalog to a mobile platform. While most smartphones these days have great browsers built in, having access to a mobile optimized version of a site makes things much easier. While the mobile version of BlogCatalog is primarily designed for the iphone, it should also...
Jul 10th
2 tags
BlogCatalog Appreciation Day →
Long time BC addict crkian has declared August 15th, 2008 the unofficial BlogCatalog Appreciation Day. Check out the link above or join the discussion to learn how to participate. Thanks Chris!
Jul 9th
2 tags
Keeping Busy
Busy as always ever in BlogCatalog land. Between keeping the site running as smooth as possible, and launching new features sometimes i forget to make time for blogging. If you somehow didn’t know already, we launched 2 new features on BlogCatalog recently: The BlogCatalog Political Channel -Talk politics with your fellow BlogCatalogers and find some great Political blogs too. ...
Jul 5th
June 2008
7 posts
1 tag
7 Quick Tips for Branding Yourself Through Social... →
head over to the BlogCatalog Blog for a new guest post by OutsideMyBrain.
Jun 17th
2 tags
BlogCatatlog's Most Popular Blogs
One of the things that bothers me most about the new BlogCatalog homepage is it’s static nature; Not a lot changes on the BlogCatalog homepage from hour to hour, let alone day to day. There isn’t much of a reason to ever return to the homepage once you’ve seen it before. After we launched the redesign, the only complaints i really heard was from those members who were on the...
Jun 17th
3 tags
More Hardware Upgrades
We have some more hardware upgrades scheduled for our DB server this week. We are upgrading our server file system to a RAID 10 array to help improve performance on some of the more intensive queries. Once the upgrade is complete we should see an improvement in read intensive queries, our nightly backups as well as the indexing of our user’s posts throughout the day. Expect these upgrades to...
Jun 9th
4 tags
Jun 8th
6 tags
Social Stream Upgrades
Given the right search terms, BlogCatalog’s Social Search is an amazing tool to find some interesting things across multiple social sites indexed by BlogCatalog users. Social search creates a chronological mix of photos, tweets, bookmarks, music, and much more. I know Tony likes to search for sushi pretty regularly. I, personally, am guilty of being subscribed to the Bacon Social Search RSS...
Jun 7th
4 tags
Tiger Beat's New Comment System
It’s with great dismay that i have had to abandon all the great comments i have gotten so far on The Tiger Beat, but my previous comment system, HaloScan, just wasn’t cutting it. It was kind of slow and buggy and had to go. Luckily, I stumbled upon Disqus on another tumblr blog and found it much more appealing. No more annoying pop-ups, poorly cached comment counts, or ads. Disqus...
Jun 1st
3 tags
The absolute, hands down, without question best... →
Robert Stevenson gives BlogCatalog a glowing review in his latest blog post. “For thousands of years, bloggers have come together on BC to share, support, laugh, learn, vent, inform, and just plain be.” What do you think? Is BlogCatalog the best place in the Blogosphere for bloggers?
Jun 1st
May 2008
28 posts
3 tags
Irreplaceable Moments… →
How much would you sacrifice to boost your BlogCatalog Rank? Robin has some interesting thoughts on the question.
May 30th
2 tags
BlogCatalog 4.0 Tonight?
The new version of BlogCatalog is very close to a point that we feel comfortable releasing it. The new site includes an improved navigation, some page layout tweaks, some small new features, and renaming of things. We tried not to change around too much, just the problem areas. The BC team is going to be traveling to Austin today for a social media presentation, but I’m hoping we get back...
May 29th
2 tags
Sunday Summary [05.25.08]
It’s been an extremely busy weekend behind the scenes at BlogCatalog. I’m running on fumes at this point and still have another full day or two of work to go. The visual refresh, aka BlogCatalog 4.0, is progressing very nicely. I’ve been using the new version of the site and it really addresses a lot of usability problems we have with the current layout, not to mention it’s...
May 26th
2 tags
BlogCatalog Bloggers Listed by Myers-Briggs... →
OutsideMyBrain started an interesting discussion the other day asking BlogCatalog bloggers what type of personality they have based on the infamous Myers-Briggs Typology. So far he has collected 26 blogger’s responses and the results are really quite interesting. It’s no surprise, however, that quite a few of our discussion regulars came up as type INTJ. I’m off to take the test...
May 25th
2 tags
Social Networking Wars : MyBlogLog vs BlogCatalog →
Abhinav Sood compares the alexa rankings for BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog over the last few months and leaves us with an interesting insight: “MyBlogLog shows you the traffic for your blog while BlogCatalog gives you the traffic for your blog!”
May 24th
3 tags
May 23rd
2 tags
May 21st
Do You Link to Your Sources? →
Over at the BlogCatalog Blog, Mark Stoneman give us four reasons why linking to your sources is an important part of blogging.
May 20th