The State of the Blog Address

It has become common practice in the blogosphere that when a blogger has an anniversary (blogiversary) or hits the 100,000 or even the 1,000,000 visitor count, he/she uses that opportunity to give a State of the Blog address. Usually, this address involves lots of self-love and pointless pontification.

I’ve had this blog for a year and a half or so (plus 1 year at Apt. 11D). It’s not a blogiversary. And my hit count as of this morning was 194,705 (194,703 more than my dissertation). Not a pretty number. But I’m in the mood for some self love and hot wind, so here goes. My State of the Blog address.

Old Faces
Despite the fact that the numbers of bloggers keeps expanding geometrically (8 million and counting), the big faces in the blogosphere have stayed the same. The two hundred bloggers with the most links are dinosaurs in blog years. The only new faces to the blogosphere come with prior credentials or are launched as part of a professional group blog. The no name amateur blogger is having a harder time getting recognized.

The top names stay on top for many reasons. One. Reputation. Every time a mommy decides to start a blog, she puts dooce on her blogroll. Every time that a libertarian starts a blog, he puts Instapundit there. Most of these new bloggers have very little experience with the blogosphere and quit working on their blog in about a week or so. Still that link on that quickly abandoned blog is up there for eternity and gets counted in every blog ranking.

Two. The top bloggers link to each other and don’t have time to surf for new talent. Through incestuous linking, they bat their readership back and forth between each other.

Three. These guys are good. They have carved out their niche in the blogosphere. They have a strong, easily understood political affiliations. Experience has made their thinking sharp and their posts internet-happy. They know how to link to others and to recognize a good story. Few people have the free time to spend on unpaid activity.

The ossification of the blogosphere continues. Why does this matter? Well, one of the neat things about blogging is its democratic promise. Theoretically, any schmuck can pen his thoughts on life and politics, and have them published for little cost. No fancy degrees or years wasted paying dues. Just post, publish, and the little guy can make the big guy listen to him.

This is still true. Anybody can get a free subscription to Blogger and write a post about Cheney shooting his buddy in the ass. Lots of ha-ha potential there. But the chances that anybody will read that ha-ha-Cheney-post are very small. The only chance that it will get read is if the words “me so horny” are buried in the text attracting the pervert googlers.

Bloggers have to decide that bringing up the newbies is important and work consciously to bring in the new voices. The Carnivals are a great invention and publicizing them are good things.

New bloggers also have to be cagier than we were. They have to band together in group blogs. They have to fit themselves into already formed blog cliques by commenting frequently on other blogs in that group and getting attention of the bigger bloggers by linking to them over and over. They have to have very, very clear missions and political ideologies. They have to be totally predictable.

(OK, this is going to be a two or three part post. More later.)