If it weren't for pfblogs.org I would probably have 0 visitors. I got the temporary gold star for 2 months for having the pfblogs.org blogroll. I would donate to pfblogs.org since I think it's a great website, however, the privacy concerns prevent me from doing so. Are other donation methods accepted?
I think it's a great boon to have friends of pfblogs.org posts highlighted, but to me it also strengthens the divide between the members and the nonmembers. It makes membership more elite and signifies the divide between friends and non-friends.
I want to be part of the in crowd too.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Is pfblogs.org becoming too elite?
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7 comments:
I for one miss the days of the simple alphabetized list on the right hand side, with recent posters a darker blue than others. The yellow star for members was a nice perk, but didn't take away from the ability to find a blog you were interested in. Now if I'm looking for a particular blog on the right hand side, I have to look through the whole dang list. Haven't been bothered enough to post about it on the pfblogs.org blog, but now that you mentioned your concern about elitism I thought I'd reply.
You would have at least one visitor. I came from pfblogs.COM which is in my humble opinion far better than pfblogs.org for many reasons. First, it's far less populated, so while it's audience is smaller, you're not fighting for attention with so many other blogs. Second, there's none of this membership fee nonsense. pfblogs.org's maintainer talks about ads on pfblogs.com like they are some sort of evil presence stealing money from us helpless bloggers. Wrong! Both sites provide a service, it's just that pfblogs.com has found a smarter way to provide that service at no cost to the bloggers. Not only that, but pfblogs.com actually allows bloggers to MAKE money from pfblogs.com by having their adsense code thrown into pfblogs.com's ad rotation, so the whole argument against ads goes completely out the window.
The whole stars/friends thing on pfblogs.org is where I drew the line. Suddenly this "ad-free" service isn't so free at all. If you want to be toward the top of the list, even if you haven't updated your blog in ages, and if you want that stupid red stripe, you've gotta cough up cash.
My final gripe is the pfblogs.org blogroll. Letting a random generator choose what sites you link to at any given time is a bad idea. You might end up giving links to sites you don't particularly care for, while sites you really love go unlinked because they didn't come up in that rotation, or worse..... that site's not on pfblogs.org!!!!!
Too many blogs, elitist membership fees, and a lousy execution will doom pfblogs.org to failure in the end. Readers and bloggers alike should switch over to pfblogs.com as soon as possible. No elitism, no frills, no nonsense.
Sorry for posting anonymously, but the owner of pfblogs.org is a powerful figure in the world of PF blogs and speaking out against him and his service can be damaging to a blogger like myself.
There are still SO many things wrong with ANY advertising on aggregator websites. The Adsense ads on the .com sites aren't even matched up with their owner's content!
You may be interested in this update regarding the alphabetical list on pfblogs.org.
By the way, the webmaster says you can become Friends of pfblogs.org without having to pay... you'll have to ask about that. If it's elitism, it's elitism for everyone.
Wow, thanks for the comments everyone.
Claire, I agree with you that I miss the early days of pfblogs.org.
Anon 1, Thanks for drawing my attention to pfblogs.com. I had visited that site in its early days, right when pfblogs.org and pfblogs.com were first started. It seems a lot different that what I remember. It looks like I was just added to the site - I appreciate the unrequested addition. Thanks pfblogs.com webmaster!
Anon 2, thanks for the comment. I will ask the webmaster of pfblogs.org if there is a way to become a friend without paying (other than placing the blogroll on your website).
While I may not like what is happening to pfblogs.org, I find it all understandable. The blog aggregator is much larger than when it first started and in need of more money to keep the site up. It makes a lot of sense to have a member supported website.
The webmaster of pfblogs.org did email me and say that I could snail mail him a donation. I think I may consider doing that.
I agree with you. I think pfblogs.org is becoming too elite. I don't like the randomized list either. They should retain the alphabetical option.
Since you mentioned it Frugal... I'll go into some detail. One of the reasons the alphabetical list was removed from the sidebar location was because bloggers were trying to change their blog names just to appear first on the list. People believe the top of the list should be coveted, thus the alphabetical list was causing more problems than it was worth. The random list is more fair to all. The alphabetical list is now in another location.
I miss the alphabetized list too. Notice that I don't use the random generated blogroll. I want all the links on my site controlled by me. I guess I'm a blog control freak. I miss the early days of the internet when the person making the website controlled everything on it. (Of course my blog back then looked really awful too! haha)
I think the pfblogs.org people do well for what they are offering. I got a gold star at the very beginning and don't mind helping them out. What I do mind is that pfblogs.com basically steals your content away from your website and profits off of it. I don't particularly care for that at all.
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