PFBlog writing challenge: How do we improve?

As a relatively new pfblogger (since January 2006), I’ve found that the pfblog community is one of the best of the genre communities. I write as thatedeguy on my main page(Thatedeguy) and on a tech blog(SuperGeekBlog) and have had numerous run in’s with some people who are rather unfriendly. Most times they are unfriendly because I have a different point of view, or just because they want to try and drum up a little traffic for themselves.

So far the pfbloggers I have had the occasion to write about and who have written about me have been some of the most friendly and cooperative people I have worked with. The one problem that I see with our little niche of the World Wide Web is that the big boys like Motley Fool, MSN Money, Forbes, etc… get all the spotlight. Sure they make a few mentions to some of us every once in a while, but for the most part they still rule the roost.

How do we as pfbloggers become more mainstream and take a little more of that constant spotlight? One of the biggest hinderances that I have noticed is that pfblogs are still viewed as being merely personal blogs with a financial twist. Most of us are not financial professionals and I think that lends to that perception. In truth though, where else can you get educated information from someone who isn’t working on a commission?

I think the member blogs of the Money Blog Network have certainly started on the right direction. Creating the network the way that they have has given them a little more credibility than some of the rest of us have. Others, through their major media mentions, have also lent a little credibility to the arena.

Anyone have any good ideas for making the Pfblog genre more credible? How do we improve as a whole in such a way that we can truly help make people better stewards of their finances? That’s what we’re here for isn’t it?

Here’s the challenge: If you have any ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments or create a post on your own site with a trackback to this post. I’ll either update this post with the links to those posts or create a new post with the list if I get enough trackbacks. I’ll leave it open for about 7 days. Maybe less or more depending on response.

[tags]challenge, writing challenge, pfblogs, pfblog, improve, pfblogging, pfbloggers, personal finance[/tags]