I happened to notice a spike in referrals from Feedster, a RSS search engine, the other day and discovered that we were their ‘Feed of the Day’. They have been featuring soccer blogs from across the globe all during the World Cup and are very impressed with the ‘Soccersphere’:
Since the most popular sporting event in the world kicked off with its first game on June 9th, I have been sifting through the seemingly endless blogs devoted to what most of the world calls Football. Quite simply, I have never been more amazed at both the quality and quantity of what fans from several countries have been producing. Even the amount of content generated during the Winter Olympics could in no way compare to the content generated when Beckham scored a goal for England.
[...]
Cataclysmic events, politics, and entertainment do inspire their share of consumer-generated content. However, the discussions of these issues tend to be confined to geography, or are generally short-lived. Football transcends borders and fuels interaction, culminating with the championship every four years. It is quite a phenomenon. It is also refreshing to not have to turn to ESPN to receive a bland retelling of a game through it’s highlights, and instead be able to turn to ten different blogs from four different continents all telling the same story differently. These are not low-quality reports, either. They are passionate and rife with opinionated criticism.
Yet another satisfied ESPN viewer! Seriously though, I too have enjoyed reading the broad spectrum of opinions after each set of matches. Thanks Feedster, for helping soccer blogs get a broader audience and maybe helping new fans understand the sport better!
Hey Oscar – that’s a perfect tagline for SoccerBlogs: "Soccer Blogs – passionate and rife with opinionated criticism"





July 7th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Because he is too modest to say it, I’ll mention that On The Pitch is the Featured Feed on the feedster homepage. Well done, sir.
Also, I agree with your point about the variety in the Soccersphere. I am stunned everday when I open Bloglines and see how many soccer bloggers there are. I’ve also found that soccer bloggers tend to be pretty decent writers.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:00 am
At last count Oscar had over 200 soccer feeds at SoccerBlogs. I’m still amazed how many blogs have shown up and have stayed active. I really hope most folks stick around after the World Cup because things will get even more diverse then.
I’m working on some fun things for the ‘SoccerSphere’ as you coined it. We might be more of a force than we realize.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:38 am
I really like that tag line, hmmm …
July 7th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
We’re happy to showcase your talent. Glad we could help your traffic!
July 7th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Thanks again Rachel!
July 7th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
I’m very excited to have coined something.