beyond power laws

Great post there. I do website design and people are always talking about more traffic. Personally I think the trick is to find targeted traffic, not just X amounts of people.

Now I just have to wait to become famous........ ;-)

Mmm. I've been waiting for you to weigh in on this. Deliciously put, and thanks for the lack of math.

And purple helps too. A precise, mathematical purple.

Prince has a weblog? Obviously, celebrity is not *always* a guarantee for website traffic. Unless your favorite color is purple and you like paisley.

Now all I have to do is fake a bunch of weblog entries that go back to 1998....

You joke. My plan (which has been marginally successful in that I now have many more readers than I did before) was to identify my weaknesses. For instance, I am a poor writer with a sense of humor that does not translate well to the written word. Beyond this fact, I don't really have opinions on most issues, due to apathy or reluctance to make a moral stand.

My solution: create a weblog that requires almost no writing at all. And I'm going to be in some Dutch magazine later this month. So anyone can, in a way, have a successful weblog. And it's based on LiveJournal.

Anil, can I borrow your time machine?

Anil, will you marry me?

You'll be pleased to know that when i brought your name up in conversation with an Extremely Popular Web Celebrity yesterday, his reaction was a snotty "Who, her?"

Congratulations. The popular hate you, which makes you incredibly popular. I'd be bitter about it, but I'm incredibly talented. It's a tradeoff I have to live with.

Oddly enough, you, I and Fabio seem to have come to similar conclusions regarding this lovely power-law stuff, roughly simultaneously.

I will admit that you're funnier, tho'.

Extremely Popular Web Celebrity, you say? Impossible. I know all of them, and they're all quite aware of my 100% manly status. I won't believe you until we get a link to this person's site.

What does traffic matter anyway, unless you're really looking for people to donate (or rake in advertising dollar$)?

If I were concerned about being popular, I wouldn't have gone into Engineering ;)

Thanks Anil! I've followed the "Be a better weblog than those newbie losers" programme to the letter, and now I'm much more important than almost everyone else in Blogspace! Thanks!

Thanks! Through a strict regime of starting my blog in 1999 and actually keeping at it, I'm glad to be able to distinguish myself from unwashed masses!

I found this post to be a sad display of your ego. Are you so insecure that you need to proclaim your popularity in such an annoying manner? Some people create blogs for themselves and their friends. Some people are humble enough to share their thoughts for the sake of sharing, not because they may land a gig on TV or at South by Southwest. Seriously, your ego is quite astonishing and truly disappointing.

I'm super l33t, I started a journal before you youngins called it a blog, way back in 96. then again I was lucky if I got 10 visitors a year. Wish I had archives of it....

I, on the other hand, found the post to be a magnificient display of your ego.

Age of your weblog certainly has something to do with the popularity but it takes some sort of spark to get the traffic. (sp-ark' = n. Link from Kottke's site).

Now, at this point Nick Denton, yourself, Meg Hourihan, Jason Kottke, et. al. have so many readers that they can spin off Web sites and break the "best if openned before 2000" rule. If I had made Gawker or Gizmodo (they would suck) and no one would ever find them. It's all about who you know.

Occassionally you encounter a really well written or otherwise interesting site that slowly earns itself a reputation. I think Soundbitten is one of the best reads out there but hasn't reached dashian status yet. If it does then it will show that good writing conquers all, if not, then we can be fairly certain success requires Anil's good looks.

What's the big deal? I was web logging back in 1977. And I have proof.

Yeah, I like to think alot of bloggers do it for the same reasons they write a diary. Not to get recognition or popularity. Just to get the feeling that there are people out there nodding with recognition when they read your blog.

It makes me sad when people don't get the joke.

:(

I have such an Ego that it grew an "r" and then a hump. Egor goes where I go as long as I feed it. It's a trip.

"I won't believe you until we get a link to this person's site."

I never divulge my sources.

Only sexy people have weblogs. Period. So why do I have one? I have no idea. I have no clue how many hits, visits, whatever, I've gotten. I use my website as an alternative to boredom and that's mainly it. If you read it, fine. If you don't, fine. I get most of my satisfaction from documenting my strange and unusual life, not from the people who visit it. Am I dick for saying that?

Don't feel sad, Anil. Most of us got it and thought it was hilarious. :) You can't help that some folks have no sense of humor.

Will I get famous if I post a comment here?

Dashian? Congratulations! You have your own adjective!

Also don't forget the ever-popular posting of comments on sites far more popular than your own, complete with URL, in order to desperately attract the overflow from mentioned popular site.

my personality prevents me from becoming popular. change too often and always attempt what others can't.
I will have to build a blog of my own - for my personality. but will it be as popular as anil? if the statistics prove right, I will have to reconsider the means to my end.

In 1998 I was alone and without woman; not at all popular, having only one testicle; and almost catching the Gay. Then I got a web log. And now I am a regular at the Playboy Mansion and at Bob Guccioni's parties, and have more sex than every male bar Jason Kottke, John Styn and Ron Jeremy. Yes, I have more sex than even you, Anil. You only look sexy, while I'm out there having sex. I'm in the middle of an orgy right now as I type this. How many of your hits have converted into days and nights of great sex? Now if only someone would put up some maths and graphs of hits-sex ratio.

Thank you, my web log.

i'm actually very smart and intelligent. promise. but you know what?

i have absolutely no idea who the hell wil wheaton is.

seriously.

If Anil's methods seem extreme, you can always consider Dan's Weblog Depromotion Program. It involves posting less and less as time goes by, on more and more minor subjects, and letting people drop you from their blogrolls without threat of retaliatory nuclear strikes, until you reach the exalted height of the 738th most popular weblog. Whoops! Down two more since I last checked. Also, ensure that you never appear on traffic rankers like the Blogger Ecosystem, which requires as few as 50 inbound links to be included. Whoops -- now it's 52. It gets easier and easier to not be included; you can't miss!

I think it's important for all to remember that although striving for a bigger audience is fine in and of itself, there can be only one kottke.

He could post about teletubbys for months on end and it would still shine above your detailed analysis on the space shuttles demise.

I think that I want to hereby claim the targeted audience who are looking to read journal/WeBLog entries by a plumpish middle aged mom. That's mine. Nobody else can have it. Now where do I plant the flag?

Gratuituos Self Promotion Well? What? It's true... by virtue of being first those who attained large amounts of site traffic retain it because everyone links to them hoping for a linkback.

I'll also admit that I care about how much traffic I get. I have reasons for wanting traffic, most of which involve monetary gain. *grin* I've discovered that unless you are initiated into the fold of the fabulously hit wealthy by being really good at what you do, or my blind chance, good content and a lot of commenting and IM'ing other sites will lead to more traffic.

Personally I don't fint Anil to be all that sexy, but his link bar is unique. I'm just irritated I didn't think of it first. *walks off muttering*

"Anil to be all that sexy, but his link bar is unique."

Hey, kottke has that too, and added it only days after anil ;)

The further I read in these comments the happier I am that my "blog" is on hiatus. Does that make me like the burnouts that used to hang out by the side door of the school in their Iron Maiden t-shirts?

Another great way to drive traffic to your weblog is to post your URL in the comments area right here on this site. That's right, people, visit Signal vs. Noise today!

Um, excuse me but there's a war on...?

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned anything about von Thünen zones or Löschian demand cones yet.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/thunen.htm
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/losch.htm

See, i read somewhere that a really, really pathetic way to increase traffic to one's site is to visit another immensely popular site - preferably one that you've never read before but have only landed on because somebody you regularly read had linked it - and then say something witty, amusing and stylish in the comments, thereby forcing people to click on your name to link to your very own site. Today, D-list; tomorrow, well, B-list at least. Have you read my site, by the way?

God, my life is tragic and empty. I wish I was A-list. Then I could die happy. :-)

Some of us want lots of traffic because it's part of the Great Right Wing Conspiracy To Take Over The World! (Nyah-ha-ha!)

...or maybe it's just egoboo...

*is doing this only because he likes the thought of driving traffic to his own site* Its a minor quibble, and I betray my childishness in doing so, but kottke was like 3 months behind Anil in implementing his link log. 3 Months is an age in inet speeds...

I blog, if anything, for email rather than 'hits'.

Sometimes, I feel like Merv Griffin. And he was blogging before there was an internet.

I wonder if anyone got this far down?

You mean, besides me?

Jann and Liz, I'm here too!

Prince has a blog?

Where?