One of the worst things for a Web 2.0 social community to do is debut, and then sit idly, hoping success will immediately follow, with users rushing in and accepting the site as-is. A stale site is the biggest sign that one service will fail while another will survive, and could be an early "tell" as to the developers' dedication. SocialMedian looks like it's in this race to stay.

In the month following my initial coverage of SocialMedian, the online social news site has undergone a wealth of tweaks, visual enhancements and new features, and it looks like user growth has been dramatic.


You can see the growth of popular networks on SocialMedian
In the first week of April, the top 5 most popular news networks on SocialMedian contained between 50 and 100 users. But now, to make this list, it takes more than 200 users, with 729 being part of the Web 2.0 network. In fact, growth over the last month has seen the site's tech users drive similar topics, including Tech News, Social Media Watch and Social Networking, ahead of the initial leader, Campaign 2008.


The news feed shows interesting stories and comments
On Friday, as announced in a blog post, SocialMedian added some new features likely to raise the site's popularity further, including the reduction of duplicates in "My News Feed", and making Clipped stories look like votes, with those stories gaining the most votes getting a higher level of attention, Digg style. The design of the site has also improved a great deal in just a short time.

(See the Product Development Blog)

As with other social media networks, you can add stories to your news feed by using an embedded bookmarklet, and you can make comments on friends' clipped items. Where other entrants have sputtered in the face of strong competition, it looks like SocialMedian is going to make a serious run at being increasingly visible and increasingly relevant.

If you haven't tried it out already, you can get in with the code of "London". (Sign up here)

Last year, after publicly wondering about the future of MyBlogLog, and saying I felt the Yahoo-owned friends tracker and blog community site should focus more on tracking blog details than personal details, I was offered a premium account, gaining me insight into daily statistics, and full reports, showing where visitors were coming from, what they were reviewing, and interestingly, where they were headed.

While MyBlogLog is best known for their "Recent Visitors" widget, and has made waves of late with their lifestreaming service, it's now the stats I find myself taking a look at, just about on par with my standard SiteMeter details.

Out of curiosity, yesterday, I ran a report that showed what louisgray.com viewers were most likely to click on, over the last seventeen months, all the way back to January 1st of 2007. While some of the most popular items are recurring links to my RSS feed, MyBlogLog and LinkedIn, it's clear that some of the most-prominent posts I made in the last few months have had significant impact, not the least of which was the Elite Bloggers joining FriendFeed post back in March.


An example of MyBlogLog's Out Clicks Report (Click for More)
It's also clear that unless most people are clicking to new destinations from my RSS feed, and not via the site, I don't have enough traffic to make or break anyone, despite premature talk of a "Louis Gray effect".

Below are the Top 25 "Out Clicks", according to MyBlogLog. I hand-scrubbed a few, as I don't want to further encourage the porn-seekers who think Google Video can get them a quick fix, or take people off-topic.

1. http://feeds.feedburner.com/LouisgraycomLive 1,491 Clicks.
2. http://friendfeed.com/louisgray 1,171 Clicks.
3. http://www.friendfeed.com/ 805 Clicks.
4. http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/louismg 674 Clicks.
5. http://www.readburner.com/ 417 Clicks.

6. http://www.assetbar.com/ 292 Clicks.
7. http://blog.linkedin.com/blog/2008/03/company-profile.html 286 Clicks.
8. http://twitter.com/louisgray 274 Clicks.
9. http://www.linkedin.com/in/louisgray 274 Clicks.
10. http://www.ratingburner.com/ 251 Clicks.

11. http://anzman.blogspot.com/ 248 Clicks.
12. http://friendfeed.com/kevinrose 244 Clicks.
13. http://www.friendfeedmachine.com/ 244 Clicks.
14. http://www.rssmeme.com/ 238 Clicks.
15. http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=4420 237 Clicks.

16. http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05763917848110205585 211 Clicks.
17. http://friendfeed.com/adamostrow 205 Clicks.
18. http://www.techmeme.com/lb 201 Clicks.
19. http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer 194 Clicks.
20. http://www.shyftr.com/ 190 Clicks.

21. http://www.linkriver.com/ 182 Clicks.
22. http://www.mashable.com/ 182 Clicks.
23. http://bhc3.wordpress.com/ 182 Clicks.
24. http://friendfeed.com/techcrunch 181 Clicks.
25. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=589638695 175 Clicks.

There are a million blog stat engines out there, from SiteMeter to Google Analytics, SlimStat and more, but unlike SiteMeter, which limits even premium accounts to the last 4,000 visitors, MyBlogLog keeps all the data, making historical reports quite useful. While I've got quite a bit of traction checking the day to day changes, watching "Out Click" reports is very interesting, and I'll be sure to make up some new reports to see accumulative data.

Most bloggers who have spent a good amount of time building their site and community end up with a small group of peers who share the same interests, discuss the same topics, and more often than not, frequently link to one another's blogs, or feature links to friends' sites in their blog roll. This cliquish behavior can result in something of a larger echo chamber where friends talk to friends, and it can be hard for someone new to break into the circle.

But just like in high school, cliques change. Maybe as a blogger, you've found the people you thought were your friends are now not paying attention to you. Maybe, they've stopped blogging altogether, and you now have to look around and find new friends to talk to, link to and discuss the same stories. Maybe they stopped talking about one thing, and now you don't have the same interests.

The resulting feeling as a blogger can be just like it was back then when acne was a major concern - one of loneliness, and questioning who you really are. Do you need to change who you are to fit in with a new crowd? Or is it possible you're just not interesting to anyone and you too should quit?

Just in the last 18 months or so, I've experienced this to some level with my site.

When I first started getting my footing back in early 2007, one of the major peers I looked up to and shared stories with was Tony Chung of GeekWhat.com. Tony and I both shared an interest in Apple and next generation technologies like wireless power. But Tony gained a degree, moved to Taiwan, started blogging less, and changed his focus to be more philosophical, or covering the arts.

Another Web peer with whom I could exchange ideas and argue (at times), is Kent Newsome of Newsome.org. Kent is a great writer, and would often burst onto Techmeme with thoughts on the Five Stages of Blogging or when he wrote a fantastic Declaration of Blogging Independence on the fourth of July. But seemingly just as he was rising to Web stardom, posting to his site almost disappeared. Now, his last note is from late March, and he's had three notes since February. Another peer, leaving the clique.

Sometimes, good news for one friend could mean bad news for you. MG Siegler of ParisLemon got a new gig at VentureBeat, and has seen the majority of his efforts turned that way. Our co-authored Techaiku site lies largely dormant, the two of us haven't been on the same Elite Tech News podcast to date, and when MG does get the chance to talk on his personal site, it hasn't been to join my conversations.

These are just a few examples of how my blogging clique has changed, and one of the reasons I dumped the blogroll in a site UI update a few months back. No sooner would I highlight one friend, but I'd have to go back and pull their site when they stopped updating or got otherwise distracted. Seeing my blog clique change makes it even more important to make sure I'm blogging with a purpose, to start conversations, announce news, or engage with new communities, rather than trying to be popular. I expect that in twelve months, the circle of friends in the blogosphere I have now will be wildly different.

That's part of why I started highlighting five new bloggers a month who are engaging and having great voices in the blogosphere... not so much to beg them to be my next BFF, but to ensure those who are adding value are recognized, and will get the satisfaction they need to keep going. After all, if this is something like high school, somebody has to play the role of the upperclassman showing the new freshmen around the place.

So what do you do? Has your blogging clique changed? Do you want to join my clique? It's not where the cool kids hang out, but it's not like we're sitting around playing Dungeons and Dragons either.

TweetStats is a great graphical way to see trends in how often you're sending notes on Twitter, which days you're most often hanging out in the Twitterverse, and what hours are most likely to see you active than others. On Thursday, TweetStats reloaded with an feature which combines daily "tweets" with hourly "tweets", giving new insight into whether you blog from the office during your 9-5, or if you're more of a Twitter weekend warrior.

Taking a look at my own statistics, at http://tweetstats.com/graphs/louisgray, a few trends are noticeable:


1) I am using Twitter on an increasing basis. While I only averaged about 2.5 Twitter updates a day in February, that number increased to over 3 in March, and more than 4 in April. After 10 days in May, I've reached 50, making that new ratio 5 a day.


2) There are a few gaps in my Twittering behavior. The first is a near-consistent hole from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. every day, with the exception of Sunday, when it looks like I just might have something to say around 3 a.m. on some nights. The other gap is a near-emptiness during the workweek between 9 and 5, with occasional activity.

3) I use Twitter @replies for just over a third of my updates, with Robert Scoble getting 12, almost twice that of Cyndy of Profy and Frederic of The Last Podcast, who follow with 7 and 6, respectively.

While TweetStats is not new, the new graph of "Aggregate Hourly Tweets" is new, and interesting, updated for the user's local time zone. As my Twitter activity accumulates, mindful of avoiding an increase in my Twitter Noise ratio, I wonder if the patterns will remain the same. If you're curious as to your TweetStats, go to www.tweetstats.com. You can even put in any Twitter ID you wish and pull their data.