Before I posted the Follower Project yesterday, I had 755 followers. I now have 774. That's an increase of 19.
Now that may not sound like much, but in my experience, 19 is astronomically high for a single day, especially considering the fact that I have not had time yet to visit all the blogs suggested (I'll get to that after writing this post) and some of the blogs I did visit probably have not had time to follow me back yet.
So, in short, as far as I'm concerned, my idea worked. Hopefully it will continue to work. I may also talk Alex into doing some kind of blog-fest which is an extension of the idea. As writers, published, agented, aspiring, or otherwise, there's no reason not for us to all know each other. As far as I'm concerned, we're all in this together.
Now, I want to talk a little bit more about following, Google Friend Connect, and the follower widget. As Adam pointed out yesterday, and I'm sure many of you know, there are many ways to follow blogs. Personally, I don't subscribe via email, RSS (real simple syndication), or atom (whatever that is, I don't even know), because my inbox is already choked, and I happen to care a lot about being very responsive to email. But I know I have readers who follow me that way, and while I would prefer people use the GFC widget, because it let's me see your face (or Yoda avatar), and gives me an opportunity to follow you back, I don't mind if a reader prefers another method.
There is also another way to follow blogs without using GFC, and without showing up in the follower widget, that will still cause the blog's new posts to show up in your blogspot dashboard and your Google reader. Have you noticed this toolbar:
It will show up as different colors on different blogs (it's clear on mine), but as long as you're reading a blogspot blog, it should always be there. Using this toolbar to follow gives you the option to follow privately. I'm not really sure why you would want to do that, but the option is there.
Come back tomorrow for more talk about Following, and to learn how to add the Google Friend Connect Widget to your Wordpress Blog, if you would like people to be able to follow you that way.
In the meantime, you should really read Rachael Harrie's first post about the topic of Followers and Following, she really breaks down the whole subject a lot better than I do.
Now I'm off to introduce myself to the rest of the blogs you guys suggested yesterday.
