Next Blog

I like to play a little game called "Next Blog" (or potentially something wittier that my future self will invent at some point after the posting of this blog entry).

In this game I open up my blog in IE or FireFox and at the top of the screen I click on the option "Next Blog". Pretty simple.

My understanding is that blogger takes some component, statistic, keyword or something from my blog and finds another blog that is in some way "like-minded". Back in the day this was pretty pathetic, as most of my clicks directed me towards blogs in other languages or with topics that had nothing to do with what I was blogging about (I was really confused about what I was getting and why), but there was always the rare chance that I might fall upon something awesome. That's how I found quite a few of the blogs I still check up on today. Now blogger is making a little more sense but on occasion I do land on something epically off-center.

A good game of "Next Blog" goes like this. 1st click directs me to an awesome writing blog. 2nd click (yes, you want to click this button again and again to see the random selections that arise) weird photo blog - not really my cup of tea, click again. 3rd click fashion blog. 4th click limerick blog - that's right, all posts are limericks, nothing else. 5th click kittens and crafts blog - Amazing! 6th click - poetry for creeps has been blocked so I start back at square one.

If, through a game of "Next Blog" I end up finding one blog to read then that's cool. If I spend 40 minutes playing this and come up short then that's fine as well. In the process of playing I get to see what other people are blogging about and what kind of layouts and designs work and don't work. Rarely do I find the same blogs twice, so each game is a new adventure.