Well, that's all well and good. But really the question that motivates everyone to read and write about such things is, "How can my site (and therefore, I) become more popular?" Though many have masked it with lots of "inverse distribution of multivariate indices" blah blah blah, that's the heart of this thing. Well, I think I can shed some light on this, given the fact that I get more weblog traffic than you do.
Oh, wait. I'm not supposed to mention that. It's mostly true, though. There are about six billion humans and only a couple of dozen weblogs that get more traffic than me. So it's a pretty safe bet that your weblog isn't as popular as mine. Nothing personal, mind you, just an observation.
So why is that true? Well, basically, it's because I'm smarter than you, I work harder than you, and I'm more attractive than you are. (BlogSpot and LiveJournal users, I'm looking at you...) I put my heart and soul into making sure that entries are posted on my site as frequently as twice a week. In between those little meaningless posts, I document my aimless web surfing by throwing links up willy-nilly on my sidebar there. And what have you been doing? Working? Having sex? Well, it's that lack of dedication to your weblog that causes you to have to labor in my shadow.
Sure, sure, you could credit the fact that I had the dumb luck to stumble into this weblog thing pretty early, or that I go through insincere and transparent publicity stunts like picking fights and pissing people off. But the real trick to rising to the top of this meaningless heap is sexiness. Plain old sexiness.
The problem with owning up to the dirty little secret that, well, people read my site is that it pisses off people who actually care about such things. I know it's hard to believe, but there are people who really truly care how many people read their weblog. That's why they carefully study the charts and graphs that go around. I'm not trying to be ungrateful, mind you, my weblog has brought me many great things. But I'd say it's mostly because I don't particularly assign it any value. Those of you who've read regularly over the past few months might have noticed that updates are much less frequent, but that I somehow don't say "no updates for a while, I'm busy shining my shoes".
This is because I pay for the hosting on this site. It's a temple to my ego, and I know that. That's not to say that I'm not curious about network effects and the collective value of weblogs as a medium. But the joke is that even the most popular weblogs' traffic is dwarfed by, say, a random MSN story on Fred Durst. Not polite to say, but it's true.
I talk to Jeff Jarvis sometimes about his incessant "Vlog" cheerleading, and though I admire his enthusiasm, I marvel at his excitement level because the entire population of people who read, write, and care about weblogs is probably dwarfed by the readership for one issue of Entertainment Weekly, the magazine he created. Granted, everything has to start small and there's nowhere to go but up, but some perspective is probably in order.
The conclusion? Well, if you're interested in having a very popular weblog, try these tips:
Well, that's all the advice I have from what I've learned so far. Good luck!
]]>Now I just have to wait to become famous........ ;-)
]]>Now all I have to do is fake a bunch of weblog entries that go back to 1998....
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>I will admit that you're funnier, tho'.
]]>If I were concerned about being popular, I wouldn't have gone into Engineering ;)
]]>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.
]]>:(
]]>I never divulge my sources.
]]>Dashian? Congratulations! You have your own adjective!
]]>Thank you, my web log.
]]>i have absolutely no idea who the hell wil wheaton is.
seriously.
]]>He could post about teletubbys for months on end and it would still shine above your detailed analysis on the space shuttles demise.
]]>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*
]]>Hey, kottke has that too, and added it only days after anil ;)
]]>http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/thunen.htm
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/losch.htm
God, my life is tragic and empty. I wish I was A-list. Then I could die happy. :-)
]]>...or maybe it's just egoboo...
]]>Sometimes, I feel like Merv Griffin. And he was blogging before there was an internet.
]]>Where?
]]>