In the order that I read them: Mark Evans | Nicholas Carr | Shelley Powers. All of them are talking about the inequalities of the blogosphere--how A-listers hog the traffic and fail to link to "tail-end" bloggers unless they link to them first (and most of the time, not even then). I'm not sure I really want to be linked to by the A-listers--especially since they tend to specialize in tech or politics, subjects in which I am not an expert in or have chosen to remain mum about. Although Shelley Powers had pointed out that Technorati now has a search on "authority." That is such a big misnomer that it's not even funny. Popularity is more like it. Everyone may love the mutt that goes begging around for treats, but it is no surgeon.
I am with you on this, sya. Who cares about the number of links... well, not writers who like to know that they are read. I would rather have two people take notice of what I say than have 200 links to my site.
Funny. I remember when I first started (2002) there was much handwringing over this on the B- and C-list sites I read. But it all rang very false to me once I noticed that those B- and C-listers exhibited the same "non-linking to the less popular" behavior they criticized in the A-listers. It's great to be published, it's nice to get traffic. But neither is the best reason to write or blog.
I gave up the blogrolling and only have a few links on one roll now. If anyone wants me to link them, they can go to my links section and add the link on their own.
As for traffic, I've used Blog Explosion for it. I rather have people interesting in blogging come to my site.
Yes--and there are the Googlers too. But even if there are some crazy ones, at least the link on that results page has some sort of purpose other than sucking up to the blog owner.
I thought I commented before but maybe I didn't click something properly. Anyway, when I first started (2002), the B- and C-listers seemed obsessed with this topic. But then I noticed that the B- and C-listers exhibited the exact same behavior (not linking to the less popular, or ripping of a subject without linking) that they criticized in the A-listers!
For a science blogger, the best solution is to join Seed ScienceBlogs - you get readers who are actually interested in what you have to say and they find it easy to find you since you are at a central place.
I've actually been thinking about it for the past couple of weeks. But I don't want to totally abandon my domain name and upkeeping two blogs would be time consuming--besides, I'm really not that prolific.
