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I also run a personal blog which I use to post about things that I don't think fall under the realm of "work" although there is still a fair amount of code there too since coding is not only a job, but a hobby as well. More often than not, I'll post a link to my msdn blog on the site pointing user's. One day I received an email invitation from another website that my blog host (geekwithblogs.net) partners with. Since I'm a paranoid user, I approached with trepidation but found out that it actually is a very keen idea and one that I don't mind participating in.

Basically, community-credit.com gives a blogger a certain amount of points for a variety of things (blogging about something is naturally something). While I've looked through the site, I can see a lot of reasons why this is a really good thing. Here's what I've come up with:

1. It encourages you to blog. I've seen a lot of blogs that start with the line "Hello World! I've set up a blog. Expect more soon". This is followed then by crickets chirping and the sound of wind blowing in the background as said person is silent for days if not months.

2. It recognizes those that contribute. The reason I blog is simple: I want other people to know what I know because if it excites me, it'll excite someone else to do further investigation. So let's say I create a cool tool/application/gadget/etc... and blog about it. I'll then get an email or comment that asks me if it can do "such and such". Wow I think. I never thought about that. Let's look into it together. Here's the source code. Use your imagination and see what you come up with. So its this sort if disconnected collaboration and discussion that I find intriguing. It's also one of the main tenants we have here at Microsoft...passion. I'm passionate about development and can talk for hours on end. Give me a new laptop and the first thing that goes on it (after any patches of course) is Visual Studio (followed closely by games naturally for the times my brain is fried).

3. It allows for discovery. The blogging community is exploding at an almost exponential pace. There are a lot of "fluff" blogs out there so any tool that exists to help you weed out the good from the bad is spot on in my opinion. If you blog regularly, chances are you have something important to say. Even if you are what I call a "link blog", you still are informing people.

4. It's just plain fun. There tag line is "Stupid Prizes for Smart People". I tend to disagree with the "stupid prizes" part since what they have on there is everything a geek like me would want. Of course, for the non-geek, yeah, I guess they're pretty stupid though.

I encourage you to check them out. I encourage you to get off your can (or rather sit on your can in this case) and get blogging. You have something important to share (ok, I'm starting to sound like General Patton now). Coding is my life. Sharing information ranks right up there (which is why I also am passionate about writing). It's the exchange of ideas and the personality of developers that sets this industry apart from others. Chances are, my dad, who's a mechanical contractor, doesn't read a lot of mechanical contracting blogs :-)

Last thing, I was chosen as a featured developer on the site. There are greater numbers of developers out there that can code me into the ground. You could be one. Go check them out.

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