QuadBlogging, the next chapter for my English classes?

On a walk today, while thinking about a problem that I share with my English students, I realized that an organization like QuadBlogging offers some solutions. My English students and I feel uninspired as writers because we don't have a meaningful audience for our work. I have enjoyed designing this blog and writing my weekly posts, yet our class is not set up to encourage (or require) fellow students to respond to our blogs. As a blog author, I feel that I have designed a comfortable and creative place for people to have discussions and share their ideas, yet no one shows up to partake in the discussion. My sophomore English students, for the most part, really dislike the type of writing they are required to turn in to their teachers. They know that their writing will be analyzed, graded, given a bit of positive feedback, and returned to them. What a boring journey for a piece of writing. Who cares about writing a quality essay, except for those students who are highly motivated to get a good grade? In our CEP 882 class, our small group discussions on Facebook are improving in quality and relevance, yet our blogs are silent repositories for our weekly posts and creative projects. How can I change the journey of my students' writing so that they can post to a blog and receive meaningful feedback from fellow students around the world? I wish that I had feedback on my blog posts, and I know that it would breathe life into my students' writing to have an audience for a blog that showcases their ideas and creative projects.
In the system of QuadBlogging, a group of 4 schools makes an agreement to comment on each other's blogs on a 4-week rotation schedule. These schools are matched by grade level and specific interests. I plan to be a full-time English teacher next year, with a classroom blog for each English class. With the QuadBlogging structure, my students will be able to respond to the blogs created by students in other parts of the U.S. (or world) during a 3-week period while they prepare the posts that they want to share with the 3 partner schools. During their week in the spotlight, the students will receive quality comments on their writing from fellow students. I look forward to measuring the growth in writing skills and motivation while doing this QuadBlogging program next year, as compared to the relatively slow rate of growth this year with the traditional system of classroom writing.
I know that this post doesn't connect to our interior design studies for this week, except in the imaginative way in which a blogger deliberately creates a "salon" environment for discussions on selected ideas. When the blogger's voice echoes in an empty "salon", the motivation to write starts to die away.