Comments on: the gapingsphere

By: hugh

hugh — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 20:17:44 +0000

“Thought Leadership” is hard to define…
I dunno. I wouldn’t say my blog is huge in terms of traffic or daily visitors. But if you ask what percentage of the blogoshphere know about my work and think of it favorably, it’s not bad at all.

By: michael

michael — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 15:52:15 +0000

ha! Sorry, work in progress. Point 5 was from Clay Shirky’s power curve article. I think the definition of success is the key.
As far as I’m aware, the official indicators (technorati, blogosphere etc) are only based on popularity. What I’m getting at is the possibility that as blogging matures, mass-market success should start to see that the quality of a blog is what matters.
By quality I include the unique value/voice of the blog (“thought leadership”) which to a great extent depends on whether the author achieved their goals.
In my scenario, Jane Austen’s blog would attract an audience because of its quality. It would become a major influence and source of new ideas to the blogging community. It would attract greater popularity than those blogs with a tendency to mimic those higher in the foodchain (the blogdex, ecosystem example).
My definition of success would be the “thought leadership” of a blog acknowledged by the only tangible measure, its audience. I don’t think you can ignore the audience when a blog is meant to be read.

By: hugh

hugh — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 09:11:02 +0000

“5. Popularity is the only measure of a blog’s success.“
Actually Michael, I compeltely disagree. The success of a blog is defined by what one wants out of doing it.

By: michael

michael — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 05:21:38 +0000

Hi — lots to say, I’ll attempt brevity:
1. Brilliant blog. It is highly worrying that the satire expressed on the cards seems to articulate my own dealings at work, with women..
2. Thank you for linking my site earlier today. Being fairly new to blogging, recognition is gratefully received.
3. On Blogospherics. Nice touch! I think blogging has become so prolific because each one is an uncensored individual voice that contributes in a shared almost communal experience (i.e. your response to the Spanish bombs).
4. On the mass-market. I would imagine that the “power law” dynamic will ultimately reflect the quality of the blog rather than the frequency of its updates. Personal blogs that only regurgitate the aggregator links may not achieve loyalty or long-term popularity.
5. Popularity is the only measure of a blog’s success.
6. So far as I’m aware, the majority of blogs have “authentic” voices (apart from belledujour which is fiction). I define authentic as distinct from commercial.
7. It stands to reason that we all need to refresh the blogroll from time to time. Unless we discover the sparkling insights of a modern-day Jane Austen (an example of an authentic, high quality, commentator); the links or love life of an everyday blogger will eventually lose their appeal.

By: Nia

Nia — Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:44:20 +0000

Good good. I’ve read about seven to ten different blogs over the last three years (I mean regularly, although not all of them at the same time!) and a reason to give up on any of them has usually been that all the entries are repeated from one to the next, to the next, to the.…