I do not write about this concept too much on Maven Mapper’s Information these days, however there is a very good and slightly old fashioned way to network with other bloggers across the blogosphere.  Its called a blog surfing exchange. 

How Blog Surfing Exchanges Work

A blogger or a non-blogger signs up (works better if you have a blog).  You then surf through the directory of blogs that they offer, they tend to display a new blog one after the next in categories that you pick.  You control the speed and you can rate blogs as you go if you want to do that type of thing.  You can also block or favorite blogs as you go.

For each blog you visit, you earn some credits.  You can then use these credits to list your own blog in the exchange and other bloggers will then see your site in the que.

This is a good way to find other bloggers, see what they are doing, how they are doing it and network or share or develop ideas. 

This is not a good way to market your website or products or ebooks.  If you are into that type of thing, you should probably look elsewhere.

This is primarily for bloggers to connect with other bloggers and generally communicate blog to blog.

As I mentioned this concept has been around for a long time.  I am a long time member in BlogExplosion and BlogMad.  These are two of the largest surfing exchanges.  BlogExplosion is the oldest I believe and BlogMad seems to have recently eclipsed it as the largest.

To my knowledge if you have more than one blog, there is no limit on the number of blogs allowed at BlogExplosion.  That said, they are slow at approvals and very picky.  You can expect to be rejected a few times.  Try and take it in stride as it can pay off later. 

I do not agree with their philosophy, but it is their club.

BlogMad is much easier, but they limit you to 3 and then later 6 blogs.  Essentially you have to work your way up the levels to get more benefits such as the ability to list more blogs.

I’m just about to hit the ‘Mad’ level for example, I was hoping to win a Technomarine watch, but will settle for the ability to add more blogs.  Sounds goofy, but hey its about as mature as Facebook.

Big Picture Purpose for Building Subscribers

This isn’t a good place to go strictly to get traffic for your website, however as you network there and as people see and possibly like your site, they will essentially be able to use that introduction as a means to coming back and maybe subscribing to your syndicated delivery via rss or email.

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You bought your kids the Wii and paid $450, and talked to a friend that found a great deal on the Wii for $350.

Doh!

It happens to all of us at some point or another, especially after Cyber Monday and Black Friday.  Not all of us are cut out to get up at 3am to get to a store that opens at 4 am so that we can swarm the aisles looking for the single Wii listed for $75 on the shelves somewhere in the store.  I just saw a news report and Ebay is selling the Wii on average for $411 about $100 over suggested retail price, but good luck winning that auction!

Most of us, hear about the great deals after its too late.

That’s why you will now find many more sites that do not actually sell products, but help you find the great deals that are ‘really’ out there.

Here’s is an example, its called TechBargains.com and they provide information for where the latest tech deals are and what those deals look like.  They give information for both online and bricks and mortars stores from Best Buy to Tiger Direct and even some direct buys from the manufacturers themselves. 

Now the site is not a shopping cart system, so do not expect to see some ooh’s and ahhhhs type of layouts with web 2.0 buttons.  This site is designed to give you powerful knowledge to save a lot of money when you shop, without having to waste a lot of time on research.  So if you are looking for a discount computers, or a Wii or a GPS unit or whatever, you can search here, but the stuff isn’t the reason why you go here. 

The reason why you would use a pre-shopping service like TechBargains.com is to allow them to scout out the deals for you.  Now, not all retailers give a flat discount off their prices to get you in the doors.  Some will give free shipping to your house, some will give free shipping to the closest store to your house and some will give a $40 rebate or some other incentive.

Using a pre-shopping scouting service like this you can look for the gizmo you want and then find the type of good feel, good deal that is right for you.

Plus, for those of you that are feed savvy, if you do not see the deal you are looking for today, you can sign up for alerts.  Then when say, Best Buy launches a sale in the middle of the week, or Tiger Direct gets a shipment of refurbished gadgets Thursday night, you can receive an email alert or a rss feed alert that the deal for the gadget you are hoping to buy is moving somewhere in some new way.

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I’m posting an open inquiry to determine if it would be feasible for an Accelerator to be developed that would work with FeedBurners “Headline Animator” such that the animated headline GIF could be inserted into a MindManager Mindmap and provide updateable information.
To the left, is a static example of what a map might look like (click to see larger picture)

Technorati Tags: feedburner, MindManager, MindManager accelerator

Written by: Brett Bumeter, President

http://mavemappers.blogspot.com
www.softduit.com

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