I’ve been wanting to write about the 9 Rules Network for sometime now. They’ve got a good looking design, they link to some well-known (and little-known bloggers) and have a Web 2.0ey (just coined that adjective) feel that is backed up by their enormous popularity.
However… I had set aside 30 minutes today to do some reporting on them and came up with bupkiss. I went digging through entry after entry from the member sites and came up with exceptionally dissapointing results. Not one to make assumptions based on such an unrepresentative sampling of data, I started digging through old posts of their featured members in different categories (design, marketing, entrepreneurship, web 2.0, etc.) and came away equally unimpressed.
What can I say – there may well be nuggets of gold buried in the posts of 9Rules’ members, but I’m not seeing it. Perhaps I’ve become jaded or simply bored with the same old “how to X”, “ten rules for Y” posts that carry little unique information. It’s also possible that these sites are geared towards a less web-savvy audience in general, which is why someone in our industry might find them wanting.
If you decide to jump around 9Rules and do find something that’s stellar, please post it below. I’m anxious to be proven wrong.
