BlogShares

BlogShares was an online stock market for blogs, in which participants speculated on the future of individual blogs. The website operated similar to how a real stock exchange works. In BlogShares, blogs were like companies, and inbound links were the assets that drove valuations. When members first joined the website, they were given 500 BlogShare dollars. The website did not have an End of Day, which is the end of the trading day in financial markets—players could trade at any time.[2]

BlogShares
Type of site
Online stock market
Available inEnglish
OwnerSeyed Razavi
Created bySeyed Razavi
URLhttp://blogshares.com/
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedMay 2, 2003[1]
Current statusOffline

Several common strategies were adopted by BlogShares members. Some players tried to get their blog on the Top 100 Index on BlogShares, which listed the 100 blogs with the most inbound links. Other players purchased shares in popular blogs in the hopes that they would continue to grow. Jay Allen, a blogger from Budapest, Hungary, advised, "I think it's important to stress here the part about not needing a blog to play. This game is mainly about one thing: your user portfolio. [...] The aim is solely to be the one lying on the beach on a south Pacific island sipping sweet drinks from a coconut and making sure that the umbrella doesn't poke you in the eye."[2]

Seyed Razavi, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in Manchester, England, was the website's founder and programmer. After realizing that the blogosphere was similar to a stock market, Razavi setup BlogShares to allow participants to trade virtual shares of blogs, in what he considered the attention economy.[3] He noted that some members played BlogShares like a role-playing game, and some went as far as to consider themselves as a blog's chief executive officer, demanding accurate metrics for blogs that they had stakes in. Razavi also stated that BlogShares observed that its players experienced behavior modifications, since the game was "a psychological phenomenon worth measuring".[2]

In late 2011, the Blogshares database server failed,[4] with no estimate when or even if the service would return.

As of March 16, 2012 BlogShares went back online.

As of December 2, 2016, Blogshares.com only displays a cartoon about death.

References
  1. "BlogShares goes Live!". BlogShares. 2003-05-02. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  2. Shantaram, Mahesh (2003-05-01). "Buy, Sell, Hold, Blog". Rediff.com. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  3. "Rising Stock". The Guardian. 2003-11-13.
  4. "Great Crash of 2011 - Crash Analysis". BlogShares Blog. Retrieved 16 March 2012.
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