Comments on: The Long Tail

By: Terrance

Terrance — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:23:37 +0000

Actually, for a long time I didn’t comment on my blog, because it seemed like that would artificially bloat the number of comments. I only started commenting after a year or so because someone suggested it would go a long way towards engaging readers.

At this point, the blog has over 5,000 comments. And while some of them are from me, most of them are from regular readers or people who have passed through at some point. So, I guess it’s kind of impossible for me to respond to all of them. I do respond to some, where they seem to ask for a response, or I’m inspired to respond by something in the comment. I’ve not yet reached a point where a post gets hundreds of comments, but enough that it’s a challenge to respond to many of them.

As far as being any kind of blogging “celebrity,” I don’t think I’m there yet. If I am, I’m way, way down on the list.

By: Terrance

Terrance — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:11:19 +0000

Jealousy? There’s definitely some envy involved. There are probably a couple of reasons for that, the main one being that I sort of straddle two different blogging worlds; the personal and the political. I’m not sure that things would change much or that I’d get more traffic if I went more in one direction or the other.

Part of it is also that blogging has changed for me since I started. I’ve ended up in a position I never expected when I started this blog. To some degree I feel like I’ve probably gone further than a guy like me — with no credentials or bona fides, and no real qualifications except for being fairy well-read , a pretty good writer, and passionate about certain issues — could probably have a right to expect.

There’s one other factor at play. It that blogging is the first thing I’ve tried at which I’ve had a degree of success that warranted any acknowledgement or attention. So, while I’ve reached a comfortable niche, there’s this nagging desire to go to the “next level,” whatever that is.

By: Silph

Silph — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 03:51:36 +0000

This is only distantly related to your post, but it’s something I’ve always wondered about.

Why is it that such professional bloggers, like, yourself and Trey and the author of flagrantdisregard.com, reply to maybe 5% of the comments left?
` Now, I don’t say this in bitterness. I’ve come to accept the fact that there must be a reason, and I leave it at that. But I’ve always wondered about it, and it definitely diminishes my willingness to leave any response on your blogs if I know I’m going to be (what feels like) speaking into a well-carpetted room: there is no echo of a response, no signal that you have been engaged or heard. It’s a little disheartening, because often you know you’d love a response, since you look up to the blogger and respects his thoughts on the topic you comment about. But at the same time, it’s like emailing a celebrity: perhaps you have no /right/ to wish for a response from someone so famous.

One of the quotations you put in made me wonder: did you once get so much response that you were forced to not be able to respond to your blog’s comments, and thus force you into being a “broadcast outlet”? Or perhaps there’s some other reason you prefer not to reply to comments on your blog?

I’m sincerely curious. Maybe you could make this one of the small percentage of comments you give a response to?

By: lorin11

lorin11 — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 13:32:26 +0000

Terrence: It’s been interesting watching your attitude shift. I detect more jealousy about A-listers than I used to detect. Having said that, I am only a blog-reader, not a blogger. And I can tell you that the pattern of blog-reading talked about in the entry mirrors mine. I “check in” on Daily Kos, AmericaBlog and Eschaton. Most of the entries, especially the open entries, are useless to me. I rarely do more than scan the material.
You, who are one of my favorite reads, get much more time. And, when you get your teeth into a story, like Zach, you help bring it to prominence. Not to mention that you view the story from a human angle, not a political angle, as shown in your advice for folks to back off Zach when he got out.
The fact is that the most prominent blogs are explicitly political. Yours is not. Politics are a prominent subject, but not the only subject you are interested in. If I want to raise money or profile, like Paul Hackett, I’m not coming to you.
Kos’s rant about campaigns strikes me as disingenuous, if clever. It dovetails to his agenda, which is to build a local network for political change. It is the right agenda, so I am willing to forgive his dishonesty. That’s how the religious right took over the country, one PTA, one local Republican organization, at a time. Took 25-30 years of hard work. And Eschaton has organized weekly meetings here in Philadelphia, to meet and encourage local progressive bloggers.
But Kos or Eschaton will be there when they want to be there, whether or not a local network has sprung up. So, if I am running a campaign, I’m going to them, whether they like it or not.
You may not have the numbers, but you do have influence. Some of it is related to having an audience which pays closer attention to you. Some is related to talking about things in a personal way. Numbers don’t always tell the tale.

By: Greg Burton

Greg Burton — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:21:38 +0000

Your model of blogospheres seems close to a post John Evan’s did at syntagma last week – he divides it 3 ways.

So, it’s true – attention links traffic and most especially influence. It’s the last one I want to look at most carefully. If you, a mainstream media A-lister (like, say, Jeff Jarvis, with 3000 links in) make a pronouncement about “Bloggers should do X” you’ll get a lot of back and forth discussion, but I doubt many bloggers wind up doing X unless they were already planning to.

On the other hand, if you get a writer like Amy Gaharn saying “our survey of business bloggers believe that you should do X” you’re likely to see a larger uptake and effect. Why? Because Amy’s audience is targeted and people pay attention to group norms. And the people Amy reaches consult to others on blogging, and will make their expert recommendations.

I’m sure Jeff has well over 10 times the links Amy does, but it doesn’t matter.

By: connecting•the•dots

connecting•the•dots — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:20:31 +0000

Tag! We’re It! Part II

A few months back, I finally stepped out of my dead bolted existence within Ameritrade and truly began to digest the state of the Web 2.0 explosion in relation to my state of mind. Almost as soon as I did