The Net Set to join Bloguin

I’m pretty excited about this.

You may remember once-upon-a-time I wrote about wanting to join some other, bigger sports blog network. I’ve lost a little respect for the people who run that network since I first gushed about them (and you’ll notice I’m not naming them), so I turned my sights elsewhere. I always wanted to join up with a larger network, and there’s a surprising abundance of them out there.

Bloguin wasn’t exactly my first choice after I was (repeatedly) passed over by the aforementioned unnamed network. I’d never really heard of them until I went out looking for a new network to which I could apply. They’ve been around for about five years but still kind of appear to be in something of a nascent stage. They have blogs covering most, but not (yet?) all teams in the four major North American sports leagues. They’ve scratched the surface of covering the colleges, but as of now that’s about all.

To me, that made it look like they were sort of selective with whom they allowed in. Which I totally get. You probably couldn’t shake a stick online without finding non-federated blogs that cover the teams and schools that are unrepresented on Bloguin (though as an aside — I’ve never found a site quite like TNS anywhere on the ‘net, covering volleyball as broadly as we do. It’s part of the reason we launched in the first place). That says to me they want the right people, not just names to fill in gaps.

So I sent them an application, fully expecting to hear back something along the lines of “We really like what we see — write us again in 6 months.” Much to my surprise and excitement, though, they’ve let it be known that they’d like me to join. As I said, this is something I’ve always wanted, but “always” only goes back 9 months at this point. I never really expected to be taking this step in TNS’ first year, but I’m so happy to do so.

And I hope you’ll follow me.

For the next week or two, stay at this URL for all content. Sometime this month, we’ll move to a new URL. That’s one of the many things that needs to be hammered out prior to the big move. A new address, a new look….and maybe I’ll have slightly less freedom with regards to those, but the layout I’ve run with the last 6 months or so is pretty blah, so I’m not worried about that. Editorial freedom will remain the same as it ever was.

I get that this is probably a bigger deal for me than for you, the reader, but still, it’s big. And I’m happy to be taking this step. When the time comes, update your bookmarks and please continue reading The Net Set on Bloguin. I can already tell it’ll feel like home in no time.