The Blogshares game

My friends Jeremy Wright Of Ensight, Tristam Bielecki of Noo Meeja, Allen Smith of Computer Diaries, and I are all playing a fantasy stock market game called Blogshares.



As Blogshares says in its description:



"BlogShares is a fantasy stock market where weblogs are the companies. Players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs. Blogs are valued by their incoming links and add value to other blogs by linking to them. Prices can go up or down based on trading and the underlying value of the blog."



Anyone can sign up to play, whether they have a blog on the net or not. If you do keep a blog, you can "claim" your blog, and receive 1000 free shares in your own blog or blogs.



Okay, you say, fine. What does that have to do with blogging? You guys are buying and selling various blogs for imaginary profits. So what?



The very fact that there are enough blogs out there to create a full scale stock market simulation game is a testament to the growth of the blogging phenomenon. There are simply a lot of people doing it.



Notice as well, that blogs are evaluated by the game based on their number of incoming links. That method of counting incoming links is one of the ways that the search engine Google ranks all web sites. It is based on the theory that each incoming link amounts to a "vote" in favour of the site. The more important the site doing the linking, the more highly valued the vote.



On the other hand, the types of blogs are splitting into two camps. One part of the blogging community writes columns like this one consisting of mainly original material. These bloggers also comment upon and link to interesting news and opinions articles around the internet.



The other part of the blogging world is that of the online journal variety. In that group are daily writings that some people compare to online diaries. Deeply personal in nature, these online journals or diaries are very different from the business and news type blogs.



Despite the differences in the blogging goals and techniques, the idea of writing a regular blog is a growing one. There are more blogs appearing on the internet daily. On the other hand, there are many being abandoned just as quickly.



In this column, Blog Business World, I attempt to provide assistance and advice to people wanting to add a blog to their business strategy. I outline the various uses of a blogs, and how to promote them.



So where does that fit in with playing the Blogshares game?



Blogshares reflects the growing number and importance of Blogs on the internet. Blogs are still on the leading edge of internet business and news information transfer. Starting a blog for your business will place you on that cutting edge.



Isn't that where you want to be?



Oh, and how am I doing at Blogshares?



As of this writing, my total Net Worth has grown to just over $24 million Blogshare Bucks. I started with the base amount of $500 in cash. In addition to that dollar amount, I had the 1000 shares granted to the owner of each of my blogs as a reward for starting the column itself.



I also now own all of the ouststanding shares in Blog Business World and my other roller derby blog Wayne's Derby World .



I have had a few people visit my two blogs from the Blogshares site as well.



I guess that's worth something in itself!