Burst Blog

Greetings Blogburstiverse! My name is Eric Roach and I am an editor here at Pluck, and it is my distinct pleasure to be in charge of Blogger recruitment. One of the most common questions that I get asked is,”how did you find my blog?” and so I thought I would tackle the subject as a post on this here BurstBlog.

What is Blogger Recruitment?

Basically I read the Internet every day looking for blogs that fill specific and general needs within our catalog, as well as fitting the specific requests of our publishing partners, and then invite bloggers to join based on how well they fit any of these criteria.

Read The Internet? That sounds daunting…

It certainly seems that way sometimes. I haven’t quite figured out how to print out the Internet just yet (ah – to attack the internet with a hi-liter and some post it notes), but I have discovered a variety of tools and searches that help me focus my search.

You mean like Google and Technorati?

Exactly, those are two great examples and there are many more — Sphere does a great job and even the more social sites like digg and del.icio.us can help me get to the primary movers and shakers and their blogrolls.

Blogrolls?

Yes! Blogrolls and Carnivals are tremendously helpful because they not only can help focus my searching to like-minded blogs, but I can also determine the amount of prestige a Blogger might have among his peers.

I can see how prestige might be helpful — what else are you looking for?

On a typical day I open up hundreds of tabs in firefox usually related to a general topic (business blogs that don’t have to do with SEO, say, or fantasy football blogs) and then I start reading the blogs and closing out tabs that don’t offer what I am looking for — Maybe the blog is too new, or the posting frequency is too slow, or there is not enough original thought.

And then what?

Then I start reading the blogs more thoroughly — check posts and check links and look at the community (how active are the comments) and if the blog passes those more subjective tests, I send out an invitation.

So you don’t really know how you found my blog…

Well, not specifically, but I do know that I found it to be superior among your peers.

Is there anything else you’d like us to know?

I am constantly on the lookout for good blogs in any category, so if anybody knows of a great blog, a great new technology for classifying bits of the internet, or advice on how I might reach out to bloggers who have no contact info, I would be keen to hear your thoughts.

Thank you.

Thank you — you are a formidable opponent.