Just announcing that I’ve now opened up BlogRize for public access. Registration is no longer required. So, if you haven’t done so yet - please have a look at the site. And let me know what you think.

Now that the site is public my hope is that we’ll start to see BlogRize blog communities popping up for all sorts of different blogs - from health 2.0 to artificial intelligence to foreign policy, there is so much cool stuff being written about out there.

So, bloggers, it’s time to empower your readers. You know your readers like your content. But what else do they like? A BlogRize community enables your readers to come together and participate in shared discovery of the most interesting content from around the web - all grounded in a shared interest in your blog.

If you think your readers might find this useful shoot me an email: jesse (at) blogrize (dot) com.

Next, I’d also like to announce that BlogRize can now pull relevant activity from your FriendFeed profiles, including any time you “Like” a blog post, or stories you share on external services such as DIGG or Delicious.

Since we launched we’ve always offered integration with Google Reader shared items. But unsurprisingly, many of our early users also participate in the FriendFeed community. So, in order to increase the depth and relevance of the BlogRize content recommendations , I thought it wise to piggy-back of the activity that is already taking place on Friendfeed.

In a related note I’ve also taken the liberty to manually connect our existing user’s profiles to their FriendFeed profiles (in cases where the login name was the same). Normally this will be left up to users but for now I just wanted to help get the ball rolling a bit. And if you’re a FF user and you’re not on BlogRize, please come join us.

So, far I’m pretty pleased with the content recommendations that can be seen in our blog communities. And as with all social services, this will only improve as more people join the site. So, for now I’ll be cooking up schemes to make that happen.

If you’re a blogger who likes what we’ve got going here please contact me and we can discuss getting a BlogRize community going for your blog.

• Louisgray.com - BlogRize Relaunches After Hiatus With Blog-Based Communities
• RWW - BlogRize Relaunches: Google Reader Meets Digg for Blog Communities

Thanks a lot guys!

For me this has been a long journey – all the way from Australia (where I had the idea for BlogRize) then to Vancouver, Canada and now here to Seattle. While places like Australia can certainly produce some great entrepreneurs there just isn’t the large community of support for someone who is starting a new web venture, like myself.

So, I look forward to meeting other entrepreneurs and internet professions in the Seattle area. Please send me a shout - jesse at blogrize dot com if you’d like to meet up.

I’m also looking for a talented engineer with experience scaling large web apps who would like to partner with me to develop BlogRize. If you’re looking for a new project and think BlogRize might be a good fit please contact me.

I’ve got a big vision. I’m a problem solver – and I want to help solve some of the biggest problems we face as a people. I believe the internet combined with intelligently designed systems and algorithms can make an incredible impact - and that there is still huge potential for positive change. I’m looking for someone who wants to join me to help realize that potential.

I’d like to apologize to anyone who tried to use the “louisgray” invite code earlier. We were caught a little off guard with the post and hadn’t activated it at the time. But hey - it works now - for the first 100 people. Click here. If those first 100 are fully subscribed and your a blogger that simply must have access please contact me.

In closing the inaugural post - I really think we’ve developed something special with a lot of potential. If you agree or disagree or have any feedback please let me know. I’ll be listening carefully. Thank you.