Blogs, like the rest of the Web, are fickle. Lots of volume, lots of opinion, not much fact, not a lot of step-by-step, proven information. Because the stock market runs much the same way–on fickle opinion, it’s interesting to watch both, and see what conclusions appear.
Whose blogs are most popular? According to WordPress, at least for people people using Wordpess, the CNN political ticker and I Can Has Cheezeburger, a site at which people post pictures of their cats, with captions written in a special language called “lolcat.” There are so many submissions that viewers get to vote on ones they like the most, and those are the ones put on the front page.
The blogs that work, it seems, are those that track polls and those that are fun. Just like real life, this internet.
I envy those blog stats. Mine are very different. The more I post free tutorials, the more readers I get. But more free downloads is not my goal. When I post think-pieces, communication pieces (I design and run training programs on writing, presenting and communicating), I don’t get nearly the readership. In fact, in the last two days, while I was traveling and running a training program, and not posting free tutorials, my readership dropped an astonishing 96 percent. I had fewer readers yesterday than in any time since I wrote the first blog over a year ago.
It’s frustrating. People have adjusted the key words on their feeds and aggregators to pick up free tutorials, free samples, and free images, but then move on. Because I was an early adopter of web commerce, I’m always a bit surprised at how much time is spent surfing and how little diving.
Yesterday I found a link coming into my site that I didn’t recognize. When I checked it, I saw that a photograph I took appeared in another blog, credited to someone else. Now this was not a professional shot, but I have a clear copyright message, both as a permanent page and under each blog. I’m guessing that it means nothing–if you can move it, you can take it–a sort of Wild West out there in cyberspace.
Still, I read about blogs that have thousands of visitors a day. That’s not the point. How many people leave comments? How many people make purchases or have their minds changed? Web 2.0 was supposed to be more about communicating and transactions and less about skimming over the surface, reacting.
Web 2.0 is turning out to be remarkably similar to Web Original–lots of spinning, not a lot of weaving. Take a look at what the search words are that lead people to your blog. See how often the word “free” is used. It’s a good wake-up call.
–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com Image: Quinn McDonald. (c) 2008 All rights reserved.
