BumpZee - A MyBlogLog Alternative
I’m a big fan of MyBlogLog. It allows me to see who has been reading the blog and allows me to interact with them in a lot of ways. I can contact them through MyBlogLog, i can see what communties they like and i can see what other bloggers like their blog. MyBlogLog isn’t the only site out there which allows you to interact and promote your blog in this way. The alternative service which a lot of bloggers are using is called BumpZee.
BumpZee
BumpZee is definately the biggest threat to MyBlogLog’s reign. It has a lot of similarities to MyBlogLog but there are a few differences. MyBlogLog calls your blog a community so when you are browsing communties you are esssentially just browsing different blogs. With BumpZee it’s a little different. You can browse through blogs but they are actually called blogs and not communities.
Just to confuse you more, Bumpzee has communities as well. However, they are communities in the traditional sense ie. you can create your own community and you can join other communties. For example, if you run a Eminem blog you could start an Eminem commnunity and other eminem blogs and fans of Enimem would probably join up. This is one main feature MyBlogLog doesn’t have as yet.
Similar to MyBlogLog, you can leave messages on your favourite communities. They call them zees and you can browse through zee’s from all of Bumpzee or just from a certain community.
The Widgets
There are two widgets that you can add to your blog. You can use javascript though they encourage wordpress users to use a plugin (note : if you use the plugin, just upload bumpzee.php to your plugin directory as uploading bumpzee/bumpzee.php doesn’t work - eg dont upload the folder unless you are happy to edit the file to make it work).
The first widget is a ‘latest readers’ block that shows the latest bumpzee users to drop by your blog. It works the same way as MyBlogLog except you can also show the top posts in the bumpzee community too if you wish.
The second is a ‘Bump It’ button. This works the exact same way as digg. You can add the bump it button to your posts in the hope that bumpzee readers will ‘bump’ your post. All you need to do is include the bump code in your post template (inside the loop in wordpress).
Whats better - MyBlogLog or BumpZee
For the forseeable future i am going to use both ‘Recent Readers’ widgets on BloggingTips. I don’t think that i will add a ‘Bump It’ button to my posts though im sure that a lot of bloggers will have success with it.
As for which offers the blogger the best service - I’m still not sure. I really think that just now there isn’t a huge gulf between them. I recognise that BumpZee offers the ‘Bump It’ digg like button and the communities option as well however there is still more bloggers using MyBlogLog so it’s hard to say which will work best for you and your blog.
Tara | May 3rd, 2007 at 2:56 am #
I joined BumpZee a couple of days ago but done’t find it particularly user friendly. It annoys me that you have to browse blogs, rather than search (unless I am missing the search option?). Take a look at BlogCatalog.com too
Brian Heys | May 3rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm #
I hadn’t heard of Bumpzee, but I’m now a member, and will let you know what I think, although first-impressions are that it’s not quite as polished as MyBlogLog. Tara, I’ll be checking out BlogCatalog, too!
StockTube | May 5th, 2007 at 6:20 am #
thanx for the alert … have just joined bumpzee - will take some time to see if this new site will fly …
Success Online | May 30th, 2007 at 10:23 pm #
You can “Bump” into me on Bumpzee with my username as StephenWelton
I have to agree that I like MyBlogLog and seem to be gravitating to that as my favorite.
What are you thoughts on having all of the various widgets on your site at the same time?
Distraction or tool for success?
Kevin | May 31st, 2007 at 7:22 pm #
i really think that using one blog social network is enough. ive seen some blogs using 2 or 3 and its overkill in my opinion.
Pierre-Philippe Martin | June 2nd, 2008 at 12:39 am #
Thanks for the interesting post, Kevin. By any chance, would you know if there is Bumpzee code that could be used for wordpress-hosted blogs? (as opposed to a self-hosted blog using the wordpress software).
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | June 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 am #
Hi Pierre,
The code should be the same. Its just javascript if i remember right. You shouldnt have any problems putting the code on your hosted blog
Kevin
Pierre-Philippe Martin | June 2nd, 2008 at 7:44 am #
Unfortunately, Wordpress does not accept javascript on blog hosted on its platform. Sites like mybloglog or blogcatalog have simple html versions of their widgets for Worpress. I suggested to BumpZee that they do likewise.
Clive the hbutler | August 30th, 2008 at 1:58 pm #
Just in the process of adding Bumpzee now. Mine’s a new blog so need all the help I can get to get it noticed
PS: How do you get that ‘Our Writing Team’ footer - I like it and want to have guest contributors to this blog?
gurlryder | September 11th, 2008 at 8:57 pm #
i went to their site to try and register but they ask for an “invite code”. would anyone be kind enough to invite me pls? thanks!
joshua | September 29th, 2008 at 11:01 pm #
Hi.. anyone can provide bumpzee invite code please.. (joshua@list.ru)
Thanks.