Martini Musing - Technorati and Chicken Entrails
How’s that for a grabby headline? But, seriously, this post is for new bloggers or people thinking about blogging. If you’re a veteran, feel free to chime in with your thoughts - and here’s hoping I give you a chuckle or two for the weekend.
Technorati’s methods of ranking blogs are totally mystifying to me. I think reading of chicken entrails may be involved. My reaction to my roller-coaster rankings is largely “So what?” So, 303 207 150 229 163 (uh, oops, it’s 153, no it’s 154…oh forget it!) people link to me today. Technorati calls the number of links “authority.” Cute, guys. Playing to the tender blogger ego. Are the linkers actually reading my blog? Are their readers reading my blog? Does anybody get anything of value from my writing? Am I going to get more (and better) business from those links?
The “authority” is whacked in any case. I get better and faster information via Google alerts when somebody links to me.
As for the “A list” Blogging Poobahs - I don’t grok why many so-called top marketing and business blogs are so link-worthy(at least according to the Technorati rankings). Way too much (and way too precious) insider pontification about people and events or showing off their screamin’ edge use of technology (If these people could fit a tiny high-res camera with sound and wireless Web connectivity into their navel, you can bet they would. Ohhh, Ahhhh!) …nothing of real value to anybody that - gee, I dunno - might want to actually do better marketing. Big whoop you’re hangin’ with Scoble (complete with fuzzy photo in a bar somewhere). Many of my readers don’t know who he is - and wouldn’t care if they did. Further, many people are still learning (the hard way) they need to own their URL - so screamin’ edge tech toy talk doesn’t do them any good.
Technorati tags are still good to see what people are writing about - but none of us should get too hung up on popularity.
P.S. If you work in high-tech, you really should read Scoble, and Arrington (Tech Crunch) and Doc Searls. You never know where a good idea will come from - and you can keep up on techie “gossip.”
P.P.S. You can also check out my Friday guest post at Lip-Sticking: Tech Companies? Keep It Simple - I’m Busy.
What do you think? Leave a comment below - however, I moderate all comments, so it’ll take a bit to show up since I may not even turn on the computer this weekend. It’s been a longgggg week. Happy Friday!
Tags: Friday martini time, blogging, blogs, Technorati
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February 29th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
My main blog’s Technorati rank has been as high as #16 and as low as #900,000 or so. I have no idea what it is now. It’s meaningless in any case. I think blogging for popularity is doing it for the wrong reason. Said a little more about it today here: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2008/02/29/some-views-on-the-blogosystem/
Rock on,
Doc
February 29th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Thanks, Doc.
And, I loved this from your post, “I make zero money with blogging. (No advertising. Love that.) But I make more than zero because of blogging. Not enough to make me rich, but enough to make me valuable. And far more than I would make with advertising alone.”
Happy Friday!