Why I Still Don’t Like The JIBs

In the 2.5 years or so that I have been blogging the Jblogosphere has grown exponentially. Once upon a time it felt quite small to me. Ok, not small but more intimate than it feels now. There were a good 25 blogs or so on my blogroll that in my mind were the core of the Jblogging universe.

Some of them were big bloggers, some were new bloggers and some were in between. What the hell did I know, I was just another voice in cyberspace talking about this and that.

When Aussie Dave pioneered the JIBs the first time around I was pretty gung ho about it. As my grandfather would say, that is emes (Truth). But that changed pretty rapidly. Mainly I was turned off by the behavior of some bloggers.

By the second year I grew even more disillusioned with them. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t have any interest in winning. I readily admit that I would have been pleased with a victory, but I also refused to engage in any of the campaigning. It just irked me.

Enough of the walk down memory lane. If you want to catch up you can read the following posts:

Relax With the JIBs
Why Do You Blog? More about the JIBs
The JIBs- What I find Distasteful

Ok, clearly they made for good blog material, but I digress.

This year Dave is understandably avoiding playing daddy and I can’t blame him. The antics and games of the last few years must have gotten old quite quickly. It appears now that a small start-up has agreed to take on the task of trying to sail the ship. Although from what I saw it appears that there are major issues with it.

I am not the only blogger who has noticed these issues. There are more than a few people who think that the person sponsoring this is not doing so for any sort of altruistic reason, but solely for their personal benefit.

If you were running a contest you would think that in the interest of impartiality you would refrain from nominating contestants. That is not the case with the JIBs. And that is just one of a myriad number of issues with them.

Anyhoo, I’ll save some of my comments for later. For now let’s move forward and discuss something else.

One of the reasons for the formation of the JIBs was to help promote the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere. It remains an excellent idea. But for my money I prefer Haveil Havalim. On a side note my stat counter shows that these editions of HH are in the top ten of my most popular posts and they still continue to receive their share of visitors.

Haveil Havalim #30
Haveil Havalim #43
Haveil Havalim #54 Big and Beautiful
Haveil Havalim #61- Call Me Roger Maris
Haveil Havalim #72- Handed Down From the Mountaintop
Haveil Havalim:Number 97 A Sunday Special

Let’s go back for a moment to the purpose of the JIBs and HH to promote the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere. It seems to me that the overwhelming majority of the readers are already members of the group.

You could make the argument that many of the blogs have a reach into a marketplace outside of the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere. There is definitely some truth to that, but I hazard that it is very limited and that is part of why I find the competition to be less than compelling.

Already we see the campaigning gearing up. Bloggers will be pushing to be nominated and then there will be the posts and reminders to vote. All in all we end up with you standard high school popularity contest.

And that is why I prefer HH. It is open to anyone who wants to participate and it is among the easiest methods to promote your blog and build your readership. It just feels much friendlier to me and much more likely to build community.

Just my nickel on the matter.