What to do when you are out in the boonies when it comes to the weblog world? Liz Lane Lawley just wrote an account of her gradual entry into the inner circles of blogging plus a mild rant against the *not so nice* complainers who are bad-mouthing some of the great A-Listers she's gotten to know and like.
My initial reaction to Liz's post, was yes, this is great. I'm glad Liz has had that experience. It's good to know that it is possible. Like Liz, I figured out after a while that it helps to link to and comment on someone's blog if you want them to someday link your way or comment. And I blogged it when I started the process: Blogging as Social Networking. Makes sense.
But as someone who didn't get lucky or employ the strategy Liz describes and have someone of Joi Ito's stature and centrality in the blogging community, comment in my blog early on in my blogging career, I can see the other side very well too. I've been blogging since about May 1st 2003 and I am out in the boonies from the standpoint of readership and google-juice. But I'm gradually, oh so gradually, making progress and am actually much more optimistic about gaining a readership that makes my writing efforts seem worthwhile than I was the first few months.
When you are starting and hoping to achieve a readership, it sometimes feels like the deck is stacked against you. After a while, you realize that people look at other people's links to decide what to read. You know they look at Technorati which weights links to your blog based on how many links the linkers have. And that's how Google decides who to put at the top of a Google search. As Clay Shirky has said in Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality, there's such a thing as a power law that's at play.
A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list, a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world. This complaint follows a common pattern we've seen with MUDs, BBSes, and online communities like Echo and the WELL. A new social system starts, and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems. Then, as the new system grows, problems of scale set in. Not everyone can participate in every conversation. Not everyone gets to be heard. Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us, and so on... later users come into an environment shaped by earlier users; the thousand-and-first user will not be selecting blogs at random, but will rather be affected, even if unconsciously, by the preference premiums built up in the system previously...
The early bird gets the worm. In this case, people early on the scene have an *unfair* advantage in terms of their position in the network. And it gets worse because *outsiders* can get *in* by linking to and commenting in the the blogs of the top dogs. So then you have people putting the A-List in their blogrolls hoping that an A-Lister will *discover* them and point back in their direction in some way providing a lot of visibility and google-juice. It works and the side-effect is that it reinforces the tendency for new readers and the old readers to read the A-list. And, of course, it's not just the A-List, but the B-List and C-List.
In fact, as a blogger advising someone on how to get some readers, I would suggest that you look for the not so famous but somewhat established blogger (that you like) to link to and read their blogs and comment in them. They might have more time for you than the A-List which as has been described elsewhere may be more in broadcast mode than networking mode. They have so many readers that they may not have the time to respond to many comments. Their *network* cards are full to overflowing.
What some of the good writers and observers who got into blogging late are thinking is: "I can blog as well as those A-List bloggers but I'm twisting in the wind out here with few to no readers". Then the thought might sneak in: "Do I have to kiss up to the A-List to get read? Whatever happened to the democracy of publishing that was supposed to be one of the big good things about blogging?"
Now, circling back, I totally agree with Liz that the A-Listers are good people. I'm sure if you approach them appropriately with good quality comments and links, they'll *let you into their club*. There is no club, officially or unofficially. Just a bunch of people who know each other and often like each other and network with each other and share ideas with each other (and perhaps link to each other). Nothing wrong with that. It's not a conspiracy at all. Just an artifact of the network effect.
It's not the democracy we could dream of. But, you know... You can still get known if you work at it. It might take a while. That's fine. The beauty really is that it's possible. And, besides, if you make a little effort and write OK, you'll get some readers. First one. Then two. I like it. I like the process of finding good bloggers and then linking or commenting. I want to spread the good word. And I have A-list, B-list, C-list and newbies on my list. Since I identify with the newbies and aspire to being slightly-famous, I like to give them exposure.
This is going to work out. But, I do still sometimes get pissed off when the A-List is always at the top when I do a search. I wonder how to find the late comers to the party who are especially good or just have the information I want right now. I'm all in favor of compensatory structures that can help level the playing field with grace.