I love the work you’ve done on this MxMo. But the staggered roundup does give me an excuse to bring up some thoughts I’ve had about MxMo since I started blogging. I do think how you are doing it is far too measured. Rolling out the roundup in a matter of days has some things to say for itself, but over three weeks takes away from the point of a big, singular time when everyone is writing about the same thing. It also really leaves, I’m sure, the folks in the third round grinding their teeth!
Now, you’ve done a lot of work on your roundup, and I can see how hard it would be to do it for thirty-forty posts all at once, in only a day’s time. I’m sure the pictures in particular took a while to download, crop, resize, etc. Plus, a well-written para about each posting is a LOT of work! (Especial emphasis on the “well-written” part!)

But, since we’re discussing MxMo format, let’s open this box even further. Who is a blog carnival for, Bloggers or Readers? Much of what I see with MxMo so far is a sort of cocktail party amongst ourselves. How big a spike in traffic did you get for the first MxMo post? And how much of that can be attributed to wienies like me who kept dropping in every ten hours to see it you’ve gotten to our post yet? Don’t get me wrong, I love the social aspect of MxMo, but what more can we do with it, without losing much of anything we already like? After all, we all want more traffic. For some of you guys, your blog is a part-time job. You get ad revenue, or at least freebies. For guys like me, we are vanity bloggers; but we want traffic just as much. Readers are why we all write.

If we are genuinely trying to reach more readers, then I have a suggestion for us all: Make the round up post be what is posted on Mixology Monday. We all put up our post’s over the weekend, Saturday if possible to give the host time to do a quality roundup, and then on Monday evening, the host puts up the round up of all posts. This does a lot for the readers: They know when to come and see the roundup, third Monday of the Month you should drop by the Cocktail Chronicles to see where the roundup is. And a single post can be bookmarked and returned to to work through the whole thing. It also gives a single place to link to. This is handy for us (for instance, I keep a listing in the sidebar of every MxMo I’ve been a part of) and it also useful in promotion. The blogosphere thrives and grows on links. A single, reliable post, that encompasses the whole set of articles, that other bloggers we all know, read, and comment on their blogs, have a place to throw us a link and perhaps pick up some regular new readers each month. Remember, we all read each others blogs (You DO read mine, right?) but most people will at best read a couple of us regularly. MxMo is our opportunity to get added to a few new RSS or bookmark lists. That’s how we grow.

Am I totally off base?

Nonetheless, great round-up Rick! Looking forward to the next instalment…

Oh, and I definitely like the staggered roundup. After about fifteen entries my eyes start to glaze over, so it’s nice to have everything broken up into smaller bits.

On the other hand I think that if all Mixology Mondays were this way then they wouldn’t feel like an event, there would be less pressure (the good kind) to get things done by the deadline, etc, etc. I think it would just feel less special, I suppose.

Maybe an interesting compromise would be to stagger the roundups, but post each segment a day apart and not a week? Just an idea..

And as to your second question, I am actually trying more of the featured drinks this way. That’s why I have mixed feelings.. :)

I like the format of the recap. I don’t mind ‘em staggered but I’m an impatient guy, always wanting more!

:-)

Thanks again for hosting.