The out-of-beta relaunch of MyBlogLog was covered twice today on Techcrunch. On the front page Marshall Kirkpatrick notes that the site functions as an automated social network around your blog using cookies to show the members visiting your site and allowing users to mine information about what sites they visit. Users automatically join a blog’s community after ten visits, though they can change this setting to be higher or lower, or entirely manual.
While other stats packages will do similar analysis, by and large you’re only likely to encounter statistics for visitors at the level of their IP address. You might get information about where they came from and go to, but by and large, this is in a purely statistical form.
I personally find this widget a little unnerving, and that’s why I don’t stick it in my sidebar like some users (apologies to the ‘victims’ of this post). Yes, I know my movements around the web were always being tracked by someone, and in many respects it’s nice to put a face on your readers. I can certainly imagine the social networking features of the service being used for good rather than evil. But it’s frankly weird and a tad Orwellian to arrive on a website and see your own face staring back.
One of the cool aspects of the “Web 2.0″ / Blogging wave is relative anonymity (shame on Word for not helping me in spelling that word!). I can, more or less, “hide” behind my keyboard and say what is TRULY on my mind. I have no fear of reprisal!
With this piece of crap, it can all go away!
Indeed, Bob! Though “Web 2.0″, as I understand it, is about individuals being recognised in some way. This is one side of that.
Yes, but, the “recognition” is that of my creation. I still have control. Once, others can determine who I am, then I lose that control.