Had my first peak at Grand Effect today after spotting it in an article.

This seems to be a bit of a different animal than the typical "banding together of bloggers under one flag". While the emphases is on technology and the writers are technology based, the way it is being served is simply as an aggregating interface linking to the blogger's site itself (similar to Social Media Today).

Being the former editor of blognation Japan, I have mixed feelings about this approach. While it does become a nice clean interface to see what is happening or who has what to say about whatever, it somewhat delutes the brand of Grand Effect itself. What I see eventually happening in this situation is certain bloggers will become favorites and "rise to the top" while others are picked over. If this is simply a repost of their own blogs, I might tend to skip over Grand Effects altogether and subscribe to the blogger's blog itself - not a very good prospect for potential advertisers on the site.

Will keep an eye on this one. My hope is that is will become a success.