Getting the most out of amatomu
23 April 2007 Raves, South Africa, Web 2.0
Amatomu is getting bigger and better every single day it seems! I have found some really awesome articles as well as spotted 3 local bloggers (local as in my town) that I never knew existed.
So here is a small guide to getting the most out of amatomu.
Firstly, you don’t have to own a blog to participate. Simply sign up with an email address, and a display name. You need to at least have an amatomu account to benefit from some of the services like schmaaks and favourites which I will get to…
The homepage is broken up into 3 parts. On the left we have postings, middle has the zeitegest and top 30 blogs with the right incorporating the newest amatomu’ed blogs, traffic levels and buzz graphs.
To the left, to the left…
Everything you want in the box on the left. No seriously, Amaleft is where you are going to find those gems I am talking about. The latest blog posts from all blogs listed in amatomu appear on that list sometime or another, and just by browsing those 30 or so latest blog posts, I guarantee that you will find at least 2 posts titles that you will find interesting and will want to click and read. Take 30 seconds and focus on the latest posts every time you visit Amatomu and this one box alone will bring you back for more.
Not only are the latest posts listed on the left, but also hot posts. Hot posts have been schmaaked by amatomu users, so these are also a must browse section. Amarandom is also listed on the left, which displays a couple of random blogs. Think about it as the scratch patch. Every time you visit it, you are almost guaranteed to find a gem of a blog to visit.
Centre - as in the centre of attention
The middle of the Amatomu is for those self centered I-love-being-number-1 A list bloggers. ;-) Keo.co.za rules the rankings by posts and by reads, but by schmaaks is where I am aiming to make an appearance. So please schmaak my blog. Did I mention to please click here and schmaak my blog? Thought so…
Oh ya, AmaCentre also contains the zeitgeist, which always has the tag Google big and bolded. (Don’t we have anything else to talk about? ;-))
AmaRight
Point and laugh folks, point and laugh. AmaRight lists the newest blogs on amatomu. They have to be visited and a comment posted on their blog saying “Shame on you for taking this long to get your blog listed on Amatomu”.
Along with the newest blogs is a flashy graph on page impressions across all blogs on Amatomu. 60 000 seems to be the current daily average and I’m sure within a couple of months it will get up to 100 000!
Buzzgraphs are cool, but you’ll only ever spend around 60 seconds playing around with it before you attention span wilts. It’s like playing with Google trends.
What about the rest?
Trends is also a spot to have a look through every couple of months. Nothing too exciting here but it does show stats on the blogosphere like number of daily posts, blogs by category, page impressions per category and a pie graph on the top 20 blogs.
On fire is a list of the latest blog posts to be schmaaked. Think of it as a live list of blog spots as and when they have been schmaaked.
Once you signed up, grab a badge like this one and pop it on your blog. Show your support for amatomu and also chicks dig it!
Overall amatomu is my favourite website to visit at the moment. I have found some of the most interesting posts and people over the last couple of weeks and even though amatomu is owned by a media company (Mail & Guardian), it is completely focused on giving exposure to bloggers and the SA blogosphere. It freakin rocks!
One last thing…
Some SSP. I sweat blood and tears writing this awesome post, so won’t you add my blog to your favourites as well as Schmaak this post? Nothing is for free, so I’ll return the favour if you would like. ;-)
Please bookmark this post:
Adii
Funny Mail
Mike Stopforth
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12 comments so far...
Jason, great post - we’ve been wondering whether the buzzgraphs will take off and whether they deserve the spot they currently have on the front page and I think you’ve answered our question. Great guide, love the massive favourite button! You must let us know how it goes.
7:50 am
Consider yourself schmaaked stukkend.
Nice write-up. I too find myself spending waaay too much time clicking refresh on amatomu.com :)
8:11 am
While I’m here, squaloring up your comments, I thought I’d pose the question: have you seen anywhere on amatomu where you can grab an RSS feed of the latest posts for a section?
8:17 am
@Vincent: Well I’m glad my feedback on the site will help in its development! I will definitely post some time later about the impact of my massive button will have on my world. ;-)
@Allan, thanks for the schmaak! With regards to the RSS feed, I can’t find one myself! Vincent, another feature still to be added?
8:43 am
@Allan: We specifically don’t want to do that because we want RSS subs to be from the bloggers directly so they can track that traffic through feedburner etc. Do you think we should put direct links to the blogger’s feeds next to their listings?
11:36 am
Hey Jason. Awesome post. yes we are a media company, but the project has really been a side-venture and after hours venture of myself and Vince as we are passionate about the SA blogosphere (although done under banner of M&G Online). And in any case M&G isn’t really a big bad media conglomerate is it? But dude, really awesome suggestions… the buzz graphs dont really work there and we’re gonna move them and the tag cloud needs alot more work… we’re monitoring it… chat soon… email us or blog it if you have more suggestions. there is alot more coming to amatomu! matt
2:11 pm
Hey Matt, I’ve never really seen M&G as a big “controlling” media company, but they are a big media company! ;-)
Regarding amatomu, it’s great to see how you and Vincent are growing it into something really massive and I’m sure the 2 of you are lank proud of it! Keep it up.
2:22 pm
Must agree…having a ball on the new site. I like the way they’ve given seperate categories like “Humor”…
Saved your blog as well…an’ all
9:17 pm
Nice post. You do realise that you just “volunteered” as a Amatomu support techie :)
First support question: I have added my blog and the stats are working. When I create write a new post though, it does not show in the left section. Does my site need to be verified first?
Thanks
1:28 pm
@Leon: hehe! Login to Amatomu and under My blog and stats, click ping. That should sort things out!
8:43 am
Thanks. I’ll give it a go.
11:55 am
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