Recent Blog Entries
Introducing 9rules Tools: First Up, Reader Badges
Written by Mike Rundle on September 12, 2006
The next few weeks will be big for us, not only because Steve Jobs is set to announce the coolest Apple-thing ever on Tuesday, but because we’ve been working on some fun stuff and we’re psyched to finally talk about it.
The first is 9rules Tools, our new outlet for cool, bite-sized 9rules interactivity. Up till now you’ve only seen 9rules and 9rules member content on this website but times are a changin’ — personalized distribution is now the name of our game, and you’ll see what we’ve been cooking up in the weeks to come. We want to give our readers the ability to have on-demand 9rules content wherever they see fit, and the Tools page is where you’ll start to see it happen.
The newest Tools addition is a downloadable group of 9rules Reader Badges, something that we’ve been asked about for a few months now. We are very appreciative for everyone who reads 9rules and our member sites, and now you’ve got some digital schwag to show off! More details are available at the Tools page, including the ZIP download which includes various badges and Photoshop (.psd) originals for you tweakers out there!
September 12th, 2006 at 7:24 am
This is great guys - keep up the good work. I can’t wait to see what you come out with next…
September 12th, 2006 at 7:57 am
What is Steve Jobs releasing?
September 12th, 2006 at 8:05 am
How do you– I forget, to link a photo to an URL? I have the 9rules site linked in my blog. I’ll snag one and pimp it out.
September 12th, 2006 at 10:05 am
As always, nice stuff.
Have you intentionally left the 9rules “leaves” out of the mix here? I ask, because I was wondering if you were reserving the use of that mark for 9rules member sites. If not, it might be wise to spread a little of that love around.
September 12th, 2006 at 10:16 am
[...] Go ahead, show the rest of the world where you waste away your time reading through some of the best content on the net. Go ahead, grab your own buttons to muck around with. 5ThirtyOne Sponsors More info [...]
September 12th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Hey Rick, yeah we talked about that on the Tools page:
“While the 9rules leaf is reserved for 9rules members, we thought it’d be pretty cool to give people what they want and develop special 9rules Reader Badges for anyone to use.”
September 12th, 2006 at 10:25 am
In case that didn’t work - cristinamarie, copy the code from this post and copy/paste the appropriate url’s
http://brightmeadow.co.uk/2006/09/12/code/
September 12th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
I don’t know. I’m trying to be gentle here, but this seems so… introspective. I mean, it seems like something to be kept internal. Do non-9rulers read blogs or 9rules? Do non-b5ers read blogs or b5media? I think the answer to both is blogs and is based on the content that interests them.
I’m certainly not disparaging you if you drive more traffic. It just seems kind of self-aggrandizing and worth more to your bloggers than the rest of the world.
September 12th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Mike, someday I will learn to read. I’m not making any promises as to when.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Aaron you over complicate things. It’s more like giving people who want to show their support for 9rules an option so that we don’t have to tell people who are not 9rules members to take down the leaf.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Aaron, the majority of people (literally over a hundred) who requested reader badges are not affiliated with 9rules in any way, they’re just fans — people who love to read 9rules member content. We only have 200+ members in 9rules but our readership extends past that many times over. If you go to Technorati and look for “9rules” you’ll see that many, many hits are from non-9rulers who simply like 9rules, our members, or what we’re trying to do. Reader badges are for our evangelists, whether they’re members or not, we appreciate all the support they give us.
September 12th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Let’s just be upfront with it. It gives people a better way to promote 9rules if they choose to do so and that helps us and if we continue picking great sites then it helps others as well to find great sites.
Seems pretty damn useful to the rest of the world to me.
September 12th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Lol Cas, high five for the code page. When I first got accepted into 9rules I had to look up the correct code and find a computer with a copy of Photoshop installed.
Aaron I can understand why you might concerned and I too would be concerned about the badges if 9rules didn’t have quality a product to deliver, but it does.
I think it’s cool that 9rules has a more mainstream audience. I think you run into into problems with some blogging communities in the sense that their readers are only the other bloggers in the community or self proclaimed pro bloggers.
So when you have readers asking for badges, I think that’s pretty darn cool.
September 13th, 2006 at 3:47 am
How-to: get traffic from all those who wasn’t admitted into the 9rules family, without actually giving anything back.
Smart move.
September 13th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Nice, my blog has got the hook up!
September 14th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Nice! I gotta out one on my blog. Thanks!
September 14th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
[...] For those of us who are not in “the circle of trust”, of course we have no privilege of showing the leaves on our blog. But thanks to the mercy and compassion of the 9rules‘ team, now the readers can get badges to show off on their blogs. Take a look of my footer, I added the badge in there. [...]
September 15th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Nice, I would like to see buttons like “9rules Wannabe” or “Waiting for the next submission round”
September 17th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
….and just when is the next submission round anyway? There are some fantastic education/history sites out there that should be seen by your members/readers.
….just grateful for the tags I can put on my site for now
They do look pretty cool!
September 18th, 2006 at 8:17 am
elementaryhistoryteacher (and anyone else) - send them to me tyme [at] 9rules.com.
September 18th, 2006 at 8:47 am
Great stuff. This looks like an exciting set of tools for 9rules.
“an exciting set of tools for 9rules”
Could be a top slogan.
September 18th, 2006 at 11:12 am
And Mr. Jobs didn’t announce anything cool on Tuesday just so you know.
September 19th, 2006 at 3:45 am
Yeah, the only thing that I noticed about iTunes 7 (other than the interface and they switched back to blue) is that it eats up a lot more ram now.