Of Blogs, A-Listers, Traffic, & Memetrackers

Mar 4, 2006 | blog

With the recent discussions of A-Listers, debates on whether traffic is the right/wrong reason to blog, and the success & failure of memetrackers to correctly track and rate blogs, I felt I needed to voice my opinion. The only problem was that I didn’t think I had anything to contribute to the conversation. Discussions on “a-listers” & gatekeepers really got me thinking about blogging more as what it really is – a discussion, a conversation that everyone can be involved in.

Everyone has an equal opportunity – I can tell because watching my states shows what search & blog tracking bots have crawled my blog. Knowing that – I feel confident that if people are interested in what I’m saying, they’ll click a link and arrive here to read my opinion.

The thing that really has attracted me to blogging is the opportunity to voice my opinion – it’s not a natural thing for me. Some people may disagree at work – I have a tendency to disassemble some pretty-well thought-out or well-meaning ideas/solutions. But that has to do with what is best for the company, what fits within the company policies, security requirements or budget constraints that I’m aware of. My personal take on technology, where it currently is, and what we should be expecting is a wholly different thing, and would probably surprise many coworkers.

Writing is the other thing that has attracted me to blogging. It is something that I’m ok at. I mean I write great technical pieces at work, documentation, how to manuals, procedures, polices, etc… but that is dry analytical stuff. Blogging is my own thoughts, perspectives and opinions. So offering them up for public consumption has taken a few steps for me – and allows me to really work at perfecting the writing thing. I’m getting better, though my old high school English instructor 20 years ago would never believe I would try my hand at writing and publishing to a public venue.

As the discussion of A-Listers progressed, I found that I did not have a problem with the group many call a-listers. Though many of us are live in different geo-political spheres, the discussion to me has invoked a lot of thought. A lot of new ideas of what blogging, technology, corporate antics, personal time, and in general life may be about – at least for me. The discussion of this same group being “gatekeepers” to the blogosphere is an interesting viewpoint, but does not bother me in the least. If what I have to say is important, or relevant, people will find the site – surely there is enough technology tracking the blogosphere for anyone to find content to their tastes.

My viewpoint on the idea that traffic is the ultimate gage of a sites “worth” or that I need to generate traffic for my blog to be relevant is this: who cares about traffic? Ok, I’ll admit that just like the idea of being a “rock star” was alluring I was 14, the idea of being an “A-Lister” can also be an alluring draw. The reality is that blogs are a platform for conversation. They are a personal space that you can customize to your needs, to tailor to your viewpoints, your opinions and interests.

Some recent articles & posts on how some of the new memetrackers do not seem to be picking up or ranking everyone’s blogs correctly is troubling, but will work itself out. I doubt that anyone at these companies has any ideas of being “king-makers” or being able to pick and choose who is on the A-List or whatever. The phenomenal growth of each new Internet market niche is enough to make any company struggle to keep up with demand or growth.

So with this long post I’ve laid out some of my basic ideas of recent discussions. Probably its too-long a read for a blog post – I seem to remember reading somewhere that long posts are a “no-no” in the blogosphere, but I believe that additional context is needed from time to time. And, the best way for me to grow my writing abilities for short posts is to build a few long ones from time to time.