If you ever step back and take a look at a group of bloggers in a particular niche, it is always interesting to see the behaviors of those bloggers.   Have you ever noticed a website that takes content others have written and presents it as their own?  This seems to happen more often than one would like to see, and a lot of this comes from bloggers who want to act like they are ”breaking” the story.   Unfortunately, these bloggers tend to treat other blogs in their niche as competitors, rather than giving them credit for the great post they just did by placing a “via blog’s name” at the bottom of the post or something similar.

I think for stories that are rampant across the blogosphere, this isn’t necessarily a a problem because you can read the same stuff everywhere, but it is always a good idea to at least personalize the post a bit with your thoughts on the product or service.   Otherwise, why would people come to your blog if you don’t have anything original?

Another thing people often tend to do is guard links as if they are some sort of treasure, especially when it comes to other bloggers in your niche.  As Dosh Dosh recently pointed out, your fellow bloggers are not your competitors.   Linking to these blogs and helping your readers discover their site is not going to be at the expense of your site.   What will likely happen is your readers will instead subscribe to both sites, especially if you write original and worthwhile content.

One practice that I often employ is to link out as much as possible to similar blogs.   I try to work links into my posts to work done by my top commentators or to posts on other similar blogs.  This helps that blogger and it can also help build longstanding relationships with that individual who shares your interests. 

Do you treat other blogs as competition or as potential readers?