Social Media - MyBlogLog, Spicypage, Bumpzee and BlogCatalog Widget Comparison

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When it comes to social media networking there are a growing number of sites to choose from. For many there can never be too many was to network but when it comes to decided which of the social media widgets to choose can be a bit more difficult to decide which one to choose or if you should have more than one on your site.

Most social media networking widgets are placed in the sidebar of a blog or website. Some site owners put the widget in the footer and as you can see I have mine in the header. Most of these types of widget track the visitors to your site and displays the photo or logo of the visitors who are members of a particular social media networking site such as MyBlogLog.

To start I would like to give a mini review of each of the social networking sites and then a review of the widgets they offer.

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• MyBlogLog mini review

MyBlogLog is the most popular social networking site that offers a widget. MyBlogLog has thousands of members which is very appealing to most looking to network with other like-minded website/blog authors. MyBlogLog has grown so large that it is getting harder websites/blogs that don’t have a widget. MyBlogLog’s large member base and easy to customize widget are the main reasons I use their widget. I am not particularly impressed with the ‘in site’ networking. I am surprised that even though Yahoo purchased them months ago they haven’t made any improvements to the user interaction capabilities. For a site that seems to be target professionals and people serious about blogging it seems strange that they only offer a ‘MySpace’ type messaging system.

• MyBlogLog widget review

The best part about the MyBlogLog widget is that it’s very customizable. You can choose how many rows and the colors of the backgrounds and links you prefer. You can also choose what you want to the header text to say. As you can see “I Love Dosh Dosh”.

• spicypage mini review

spicypage is set up much differently than MyBlogLog but is basically the same idea. As a member you can vote on another members site. Thumbs up means you like it and thumbs down means you don’t. They offer better interaction with other members by allowing you to comment on a community’s comment page. It’s not that much different than what MyBlogLog offers but it is in the middle of the site instead of off to the side. It seems that spicypage’s goal is to give every member a little visibility by displaying ‘latest activity’ and ‘last login’ as default on the homepage. I am not sure I understand how one reaches the Most Popular list though. It doesn’t have to do with votes. I will have to look into that at a later time. If anyone knows how you get on the Most Popular list let me know.

• spicypage widget review

I would have to say that the spicypage widget is the most unattractive of the lot. From what I can tell the only thing you can customize is the color and you only have 6 color choices. It’s a lot harder to find a spicypage widget actually displayed on a blog. Even many of those on the most popular list didn’t have the widget. I personally really don’t like the idea of putting a Chile Pepper on my site. I think it would benefit spicypage if they would make their widget more customizable and allow people to get rid of the Chile. The widget displays recent voters not readers like MyBlogLog displays.

• Bumpzee mini review

Bumpzee is a very new social networking site that I think has a lot of potential. Bumpzee is kind of like a cross between MyBlogLog and Technorati. Bumpzee allows you to create communities on topics of interest as opposed to communities for specific sites. You can create a favorites list, join communities, start communities and vote on blog posts. You can also interact with other members by participating in discussions or zees (short comments). Bumpzee also gives new community starters some visibility on the homepage. The only real complaint I have about Bumpzee is that there are some things that are a bit confusing. I have started a few communities and I am still not entirely sure about all the features available. The fact that I am confused might have more to do with the amount of time I have to look into the features but I do think they could make some of the features user friendly.

• Bumpzee widget review

Bumpzee offers two widgets. They have the customizable recent readers widget which you can opt to have the “Number of top entries” displayed or not. The Bumpzee widget is very similar to MyBlogLog’s widget. They also offer a little Bumpzee ‘bump it’ widget similar to the Digg widget.

• BlogCatalog mini review

BlogCatalog is very new to me so I don’t have a lot of experience with it. The idea behind BlogCatalog is to be a blog directory but with extra features. You can search for other blogs or submit your own. Members can view your blog stats and rate your site. Each submitted blog gets a detailed page where you can view your stats, recent viewers, and neighborhood. I think the neighborhood is the same as community members. This detail page is set up like a blog page so you can also leave comments on this page. You are required to link back to BlogCatalog either by using the widget or button they provide.

• BlogCatalog widget review

BlogCatalog also offers a very customizable widget. It pretty much looks just like MyBlogLog’s widget. You can customize the rows and colors. BlogCatalog might just be my new favorite.

Now I am assuming since I don’t know everything that there are other social networking sites similar to the ones I have listed. If you know of such a site then please share the link with the rest of us.

In the next Social Media post I will talk about different ways to use multiple widgets without making your site look strange.