BlogShares

Welcome to the game of BlogShares, the addicting and fast-growing web-based experience! Take the time to pop into our Forums and introduce yourself to the friendliest community on the Internet. Get involved! From documentation and support to game logic and coding, BlogShares depends on the amazing volunteer spirit of its players to improve and grow. BlogShares is more than a game—it's an addiction. Keep reading to get in on the fun!

WHAT IS BLOGSHARES?

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. No actual ownership of blogs is transfered. BlogShares is purely a fictional marketplace.

WHAT IS A BLOG?

Weblogs, called Blogs for short, are generally online journals of some sort and can be used for an unlimited range of subjects and purposes.

Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs, and corporations, and from one occasional author to large communities of writers. The totality of weblogs or Blog-related webs is usually called the Blogosphere.

The format of Blogs varies nearly limitlessly, individual weblog entries are almost always dated and time-stamped, with the newest post at the top of the page. Because links are so important to weblogs, most Blogs have a way of archiving older entries and generating a static address for individual entries; this static link is referred to as a permalink. The latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries, are offered in weblogs in the RSS XML-format, to be read with a RSS feedreader.

It is difficult to know just what is and what is not a blog suitable for inclusion in BlogShares. For the purposes of this game, blogs have the following characteristics:

* The site is authored by a clearly defined blogger (whether a specific individual, group
of individuals, or a specific organization).

* Posts appear in reverse-chronological order, or at the very least, the most recent post
appears first.

* Posts are individual, dated, often with timestamps.

* Past posts are available in some sort of archive in the blog.

* Commenting and/or trackback capability is often enabled, but not a requirement.

* Blogs can feature any subject, be personal, non-personal, or business-related, and offer
content unique to the Blog with each new post.

* Blogs must be human edited or in some way not maintained by an automated script or
aggregator. Such 'linkfarms' are considered spam.

* Blogs, for the purposes of this index, are only the main, 'home' page for the Blog, and not
its link pages, archives, individual posts, intros, summary pages, or profiles.

Sites which simply repost or copy the exact posts or materials from another site are often considered either 1) spam, 2) non-Blog (website), or 3) a 'version' of the other blog (perhaps differening only by template).

Read more about blogs and their role at BlogShares on the Blogs page.


WHY PLAY BLOGSHARES?

Addictive Fun: The most obvious reason. Whether you like building your fortune, immersing yourself in multiple game play strategies, voting Blog categories, or simply need a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of life, BlogShares offers you a game play experience that you will not soon forget.

Find New Blogs: Blogs are a great Internet phenomenon! They're changing the way some of us connect, reflect, and do business. If you are interested in a particular subject, feel free to browse our Industry page which has over 4900 different Industries (categories) to peruse. You can utilize the search feature (quick lookup) in the upper right hand corner to search by keyword, blog title, or Blog address (URL). You may even find your own!

See Your Own Blog In Action: That's right, you can add your own Blog to our system and gain special controls over your blog in the BlogShares world. You even get 1K shares in your own blog just for taking the time to claim it!

Amazing Community: Not only do we have an excellent group of people in the forums, we also have a great group of gals and guys in our IRC channels. Feel free to join in the conversation, add a haiku to the monthly contests, or join any one of a dozen other contests held constantly. Take part in this community. BlogShares includes many player-volunteers in developing game algorithms, handling support, and even writing this intro.


A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLOGSHARES

BlogShares was written in early 2003 by Seyed Razavi in his free time. The overall objective of BlogShares is the exploration of an emerging social network while providing an addictive and fun environment for bloggers to join and help add to the worth of the social network. Another one of the purposes of this site was to prove the Power Law theory. Part of this theory is based on the fact that 20% of the population holds 80% of the wealth. This can also be attributed to weblogs, 20% of the blogs contain 80% of all incoming links. BlogShares hits a home run with this theory.

The BlogShares project took off rather quickly and was considered a personal success. The site, however, was a success that would not last. BlogShares suffered from a few serious coding issues that severely hampered the site's growth and expansion, as well as its speed. At this point, BlogShares was tracking 400K blogs and links. Eventually these took their toll on the BlogShares hard drives and a catastrophic system failure ground BlogShares to a halt. That, bundled with personal reasons, caused Seyed to choose to leave the game.

At this time, BlogShares was taken over by its current owner: Jay Campbell, and co-adminned by C. Suburban Wolf (AKA Rob/SubWolf) was brought on almost immediately to help recode the entire site. Once BlogShares was taken out of the beta stages its popularity sky-rocketed. It did have its ups and downs however.

The BlogShares team made some changes to certain aspects of the game. Originally, Ideas only produced twice a day and were worth a couple dollars each. Some players even held on to millions upon millions of Ideas. When changes were implemented the prices soared, making many people instant billionaires and trillionaires. Some of the users bailed out at that point, fearing a market crash. Others chose to hold on to their Ideas in hopes that the market could sustain its rapid growth a bit longer. Ultimately this was not the case. Further changes caused the market to crash in a matter of hours, nearly bankrupting some of the richest players in the game. There were some bitter words from some, solace from others. In the end it all worked out for the best.

They also added in a new item: Chips. These items were an answer to the growing number of votes clogging the system, and they revolutionized the way many trades were handled. Today, Chips are the most valuable asset in the game, because with enough of them you can buy anything, win raffles, and purchase text ads for advertising your blog, your philosophy, your politics, your humor ... whatever. Some players even offer to purchase a Premium Membership for others in exchange for Chips.

Black Friday (November 25, 2005) brought dramatic revaluation (1 to 10,000) of Idea prices and cash value, with no change to share values. While there were legit concerns and complaints about the changes, it completely changed the nature of daily game play from one dominated by Ideas to one fully-inclusive of share trading.

In early 2006, an Ideas Math Summit solicited player input toward a new pricing model for Ideas, as well as announced a new Game Improvement Committee (GIC), which works to improve the game and its community, and to ensure that both remain fun and enjoyable for the players. After testing by the GIC, a premium feature, the Chips Market came online July 24, 2006. The new math was unveiled in late August 2006, adding a new dynamic to the ways players bought and sold ideas.

Today, BlogShares has become the most immersive online Stock Market simulation available, as well as the most popular with over 40K active users. Over 17K blogs have been claimed by their owners. Even more amazing is the sheer number of blogs currently tracked: 7.3 million.

To this day, BlogShares continues to grow and add new features. The admin and coders work hand-in-hand on a daily basis to keep this site alive, add new features, and improve functionality. BlogShares truly is a success.