Blogshares: Finding blogs by playing

Blogshares is an online stock market simulation game for bloggers.



As Blogshares describe themselves:

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

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I have been playing the game for about a year, excluding a month long close down of the game in late 2003. The game changed ownership at that time, and was revived.



My net worth is just over 5 billion Blogshares Dollars, composed of cash on hand and equity in various blogs.



I am struggling to stay in the top 500 players rankings, despite being a "free" player. As such, I'm restricted to 20 transactions, inlcuding both purchases and sales of blog holdings, per day.



While Blogshares presents a nice diversion for bloggers, it's also a great way to find many new and interesting blogs. I like to visit many of the blogs I own, to find out what interests the blogger.



Blogshares encourages blog visits by allowing for "Industry" voting. By visiting and reading through the blog, a player then "votes" on the "Industry" or topic of the blog.



Voting provides players with "karma" points that translate into "chips". Gaining chips is a good idea as they can be traded for ads on the Blogshares site, fees for onsite raffle entries, or sold to other players for cash or shares.



I have found a number of very interesting new blogs, as a direct result of playing the game.



At the same time, I have also purchased all of the available outstanding shares, in many blogs I have linked in my Resources section.



All blog owners can "claim" their own blog by displaying a personalized Blogshares button on their blog. You will notice that I have a special button on this blog. You will also see Blogshares buttons on blogs all over the internet, as their owners have claimed their own blogs.



The button used for a blog claim is personalized to your blog and your game account.



Claiming gets an immediate reward of he 1000 shares (of an initial total of 5000 shares) of the blog. Those shares are reserved for the owner to keep or sell. They can't be sold until claimed and released by the blog owner. It's then up to the blogger to purchase the remaining publicly available 4000 shares.



I own all of the 5000 total outstanding shares in my own blogs.



I also have the distinction, of introducing a number of other bloggers, to the joys of playing Blogshares.



Surf on over to the Blogshares and have a look.



It's an interesting game that might quite possibly hold your attention.



It might also introduce you to some brand new blogs.