Thoughts.com: Interactive Blogging Community
I decline a lot of reviews, simply for the fact that the ones that come my way generally aren’t anything that would be of interest to me or my readers. Reviewing something that doesn’t fit into my niche (and that’s a rather wide net, considering the number of things I blog about) would be out-of-place and no doubt something you’ll just skip over. But, then this one came my way, and it fits. So, what follows is a paid review.
Create Blog on Thoughts.com
Thoughts.com is a service you can use to create your own blog, like many other blogging services that are available. What makes Thoughts.com different from many of those other blogging services is that they are trying to create a community around their blogs. This could be a great thing for beginning bloggers that often struggle to draw attention to their sites.
First Impressions
The home page displays a number of most recent items, from posts to photos and videos. Apparently, they allow explicit content as well, so if you have a tendency to write explicit content, Thoughts.com may be a welcoming home for you. But, I also see this as a potential downside if this is not handled better. The site currently identifies itself as “beta” so hopefully these are things that would be remedied before it is released from its beta status.
You see, while post content on the home page and other areas (there are sections where you can view a full list of recent posts, random posts, popular blogs, etc.) are clearly marked as “explicit content,” photos and videos may or may not be. While I do not see (at least in the first 22 pages I browsed) any pornographic images, there were two explicit illustrations on the home page when I first checked the site. And, the juxtaposition of an image of Jesus next to an illustration of female private parts was a bit jarring, as well as NSFW! Hopefully, that was a fluke that will be fixed before the site comes out of beta.
According to their Terms of Use, prohibited content includes that which “contains sexually explicit and violent material, including nudity, links to adult websites and any sexual or sexually violent exploitation of another person.” However, they rely on users to mark “explicit content” and other users to flag things as being “Inappropriate” if something does violate the terms of use. That’s not unlike most other services. It may be that, since the site is in beta, more people are “testing the waters” than they might otherwise.
They also have a language filter in place that you can enable or disable as to your preferences.
The odd things is that the site seems to be popular with both religious people and people writing explicit content. I’ve seen more images of Jesus in just a few minutes than in a typical week of surfing blogs. It is very weird seeing words like “incest,” “Jesus,” “sex,” and “Bible” all in the same tag cloud.
Blogging and Sharing
In some respects, Thoughts.com is a like blog service, photo sharing site, video sharing site and community forums all rolled into one, which is something I like a lot. I’ve always been a fan of forums, and they do offer a level of interaction you just cannot get while blog-hopping, and I like the way they’ve rolled everything into one.
I’m not sure how much control you have over the customization of your blog. Many of the blogs I checked out look very much alike. I saw very little customization, just some color changes is all. Whether that’s because a lot of the bloggers are newbie bloggers that don’t know how or want to do much customization or if it’s because a large amount of customization isn’t possible, I don’t know. I don’t see any documentation covering that. Perhaps that information is available once you’ve signed up, but it would be best to show that kind of thing before you sign up, as it is certainly one of those things people are going to want to know beforehand.
I don’t see any option for using your own domain name. You do get a custom URL, so you could forward a domain name to it. Still, it might be nice to have that as an available feature for those who want it. It could also be an additional revenue stream for Thoughts.com if they offer domain name registration services on-site.
It’s All Free?
Speaking of revenue, it is not immediately apparent how Thoughts.com will make money. All the services appear to be free, and you get unlimited free space, so there is no “premium” level of service or anything of that nature that I can find offered on the site.
I see no ads on any of the blogs. And, it is not clear whether users are permitted to run their own ads (whether through Google AdSense or other services) or not.
They also have a Vacation Getaway. But, no indication of how they do, or plan to, make any money on the site. There are also no requests for donations that I can see either.
Perhaps they will add advertising and affiliate programs in the future, as their user base grows.
Also, checking the WHOIS, they have a private registration, which strikes me as odd for an entity that I imagine is a business. In fact, from the site, they appear very tight-lipped as to who they actually are. From the terms of use, you can make an educated guess that they are located in Florida based on the jurisdiction of courts mentioned in the document but, beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.
Does it matter? Maybe not, but then again if you’re putting your own content on someone else’s site, wouldn’t you like to have some idea who you are dealing with? And, wouldn’t you also like some idea if the site will still be around in the future, especially as your blog grows more popular?
Closing
Despite the reservations I’ve expressed above, I think that Thoughts.com has a lot of potential if managed and promoted properly. For those who want to be on the ground floor of something that could be big, now is the time to sign up and establish a presence. For everyone else, this is one to keep an eye on.
This was a great and impartial review. I like to hear the pros and cons of things otherwise it just sounds too canned and is most likely someone trying to be positive just for the money. I have no problems with reviews as long as they are done fairly. Nice job. I’m going to take a peek at them.
Nice review-
I probably would have just moused out of there!
I have never run into a site that was both religious and explicit…
I have had friends that swing that way. I used to know this chick from
church who would go on and on about her sex life and her friends sex lives, and her brothers sex life etc etc in explicit detail. Then she would get free babysitting from me so she could go to Passion Parties. Then her and her husband would pick up their kids and talk about all the sex toys that they looked at and passed around and discussed and made lame jokes about with other people who probably didn’t have half a clue about sex. Then she would… blah blah blah blah
The key word is “used to know.” Maybe she runs that site.
[...] I also did my first paid review, on Thoughts.com. Mind you, I don’t know how reliable this will be for blog income; most of the review offers [...]