The Power Guides was built because of the frustration caused by two issues
1. My wife is a keen blogger and understands that if she wanted people to visit and comment on her blog she needed to go out to other bloggers and comment on their latest posts , but she would spend 75% of her time going to blogs where the blogger was busy, sick or just had nothing to say for a few days , so over a period of time the number of blogs she checked for latest posts went down and down. I set up Google reader to include all the blogs on her blog roll and a few extra so she can tell quickly the latest 10 posts and go out and comment on them.
2. I am a big fan of blogger but when using the "next blog" function on the blogger tool bar would end up at foreign language sites or sometimes cr?? po?? or just sites I was not interested in . So as well as creating the latest post widget I decided to create a blog roll widget that was easy to update for each specific guide. The final bit I added to each page was a news widget so the latest news related to that guide could be viewed.
3. I have also now tried to enhance each guide with a custom search which includes all blogs and sites listed in the guide
4. As the site evolves we have seen new challenges including some sites dominating with 4 or more out of the 10 posts. So we have changed the way we categorize some sites/ blogs / forums , We have done this especially on the Fishing, Bird Watching, Environment and Gardening Categories because we found forums could dominate all listings meaning small personal blog posting were swallowed up and did not gain a chance for exposure. We have now moved any sites that can dominate listings into news sections to allow other personal blogs to show up.
I do hope the visitors like the concept I will try to check at least 5 posts for each guide so that any that are inappropriate can be deleted and always be on the lookout for new blogs to add.
As we continue to build new Power Guides I must admit they are often driven by my own interests but we will continue to evolve the site and involve other people who have different hobbies or interests .
We have also included the new Shared Favorite Blogs on the side of this blog which you can request and they are updated daily we pick a few postings each day which are interesting to members of that community and others who may not normally be exposed to posts from that specialty.
I have been asked a couple of times how to be included in our Guides
The blog must be related to the guide you wish to be included in and be over 1 month old with more than 10 posts.
At least 60% of posts should be related the primary guide subject and they must be your own work not just regurgitated from others
The visitor should be able to find information easily without having to trawl through
massive numbers of Adds
To be included please use the form on the guide page to request your blog to be included. You do not have to put a widget or link back to the power guides, if you do we will be grateful but it is more important other bloggers or visitors to your blog will find the posts interesting
All guides now included are listed at the side on this blog post
I did include some extra bits than originally planned including a list of sites included, a widget to display the latest 10 posts from related blogs , and finally a news widget to display latest news items
steve
