Michelle Malkin writes about the blog ecosystem, blog envy, and other matters of linkage. Coming on the heels of Steven Levy’s hit piece on blogs, Michelle’s thoughts seem to intersect with my own, though I have no more desire to move upward in the blogosphere. Despite that, I do think it’s quite possible to “break through”. Being well-linked and popular has its price, one paid in time and energy that, regardless of its reward, would simply be a bit more than I’d like to have in my life.
I confess to being ravenous for links. I love seeing a post of mine getting mentioned elsewhere. As anyone with a blog will attest, it is an ego booster to see your name on someone else’s site. One common method for getting your site into the general blogospheric consciousness is to send other bloggers links to specific posts, which quite often results in a link and sometimes an entire post on someone else’s blog. Except for a few times when I’ve done this for what I considered extra-special posts, I’ve refrained from advertising Fringe, so when someone links to it, I know it’s out of merit, rather than favour.
I’m getting a healthy, respectable, dedicated readership, around 6,000 hits per month, and I’ve been far more relaxed about getting attention than I was six months ago. I’ve lost my desire to do as much political blogging, partly because to do it right means consuming vast amounts of time, something I simply don’t have right now. Politics is the prime mover for the blogosphere, but there are ways to be popular without doing the political thing all the time. For instance, one of my favourite bloggers, Lileks diversifies his daily posts with a smattering of politics, a healthy dose of family-related topics, and various wanderings, from cigars to Minneapolis architecture to radio shows. He’s met a nice medium, and rarely undershoots his target audience. I’ve been leaning toward that style myself lately, posting on Camelot the music yesterday, and Zen Buddhism and prostitutes on Friday.
I like that strain of wildness.