So, once you’ve figured out how to make it look pretty and you’ve uploaded stuff, hopped about a bit and met some other new bloggers what more is there? Isn’t just another popularity contest for the same old bloggers to win again and again? I mean really, what’s the point? I don’t have the time to invest to make myself number 1, so why bother with it at all, right?

This is a vibe I have been picking up here and there from people around Cre8Buzz and although the questions people are asking are valid they kind of make me a bit sad.

Cre8buzz could be so much more than just a popularity contest, I mean really, in the grand scheme of things who cares if you get to be number one for a day, a week, a month? What does it really matter? Unless you are making money from your blog (which I’m not) then really, it doesn’t.

What I have found so great about this place is the community aspect.

I am meeting new people in all different areas of life, I am talking to them, reading their work, listening to their ideas and looking at their photos. I am taking a little peek inside their head and, ever the voyeur, it fascinates me.

When you read someone’s blog for the first time, if it isn’t in an area that interests you, isn’t well written or doesn’t gel with you for some reason you move on not caring to get to know the person behind it, not interested in the other aspects of them or their life. That blog is all you see of them, nothing more.

Even if you like their blog, come back day after day and comment on all their posts, your comments are often just lost in a sea of other comments, they seem trite and stiff, you can’t seem to make a connection with them. You search for something witty to say, something to make YOUR comment stand out so that you can make contact with that person but it doesn’t always come. Sometimes you can comment on a person’s blog for months without feeling like you have made a connection with them, without them really noticing you at all. What you want is a way to make contact with the person behind the blog, share ideas and thoughts, jokes and daily life.

I think Cre8Buzz gives us just that chance...

If you spend a little time getting to know some of your fellow community members and other people you see around the place that look interesting.

If you extend the hand of friendship and show an interest in their life without waiting for them to come into yours. Even just a quick “hi, how are you?” can make a person feel more involved and perhaps encourage them to step out and say hi to someone else.

If you spend time in the forums not just reading, but contributing by answering and posting your own topics.

If you install the chat widget on your profile and spend a few minutes chatting with whoever is logged on and not just the people you know.

Then I think you will start to see the full potential of Cre8Buzz. The potential to belong to a real community of people that are all intertwined somehow. A chance to find other people with the same sense of humour, or who have led a wild and interesting life or live on the other side of the world and just chat to them, the real them not their blog persona.

A chance to meet people just like you only different in so many ways; that is what Cre8buzz is to me.

The popularity side of it - well quite frankly, I don’t care.