In theory, sure. But if you talk to many of today’s bloggers, they’ll complain that the game seems fixed. They’ve targeted one of the more lucrative niches—gossip or politics or gadgets (or sex, of course)—yet they cannot reach anywhere close to the size of the existing big blogs. It’s as if there were an A-list of a few extremely lucky, well-trafficked blogs—then hordes of people stuck on the B-list or C-list, also-rans who can’t figure out why their audiences stay so comparatively puny no matter how hard they work. “It just seems like it’s a big in-party,” one blogger complained to me.
Boo, and, also, hoo. The right to own a soapbox doesn’t entail the right to be heard. And once you get of a size, it’s like any other creative product — a mixture of creativity, sweat, and connections. The idea that it’s somehow not “fair” that other folks are far more successful, hit-count or money-earned, than me has never seriously entered my mind. It’s not a matter of some great conspiracy, it’s a matter of that’s how successes are made in the real world as well as the virtual.
And, frankly, my own sense of “success” isn’t bound up on how many people read me. I get a thrill when folks come here, but I’m not doing it just for that. If I were, I’d make it my profession/vocation, not my hobby.
As a ‘Slimy Amphibian’ in something called the ‘TTLB Ecosystem’ I can only hope that my blog is at least one of those hallucinogenic frogs’
I’m a “Crawly Amphibian,” too. I’ve been a Scampering Mammal in the past, but the revision of the algorithm, plus my shifting away from as many political posts, has “hurt” the viewership here. Ah, well.
There’s my visitation over the last year. Obviously we’ve dropped a bit from Apr/May ’05 (don’t recall what was Big that month). It’s another “Ah, well” note. I don’t mind a big spike, but I’m happy enough with my family, friends, and the occasional newcomer.
For the record, as I look at my stats (which I do about once a quarter). the majority of visitors (based on domain) are from the US (56%), with Canada (8%) and the UK (7%) following.
I get a few percent from Singapore, Sweden, Mexico, Rumania, Norway, and Israel.
I get 1% or less from Macedonia, China, France, Hong Kong, Croatia, Ireland, India, Japan, South Africa, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, and Italy.
I assume some of those fractional locations are actually from various bots crawling through the site, but if there’s anyone out there from those exotic locales who wants to shout out a comment, please feel free.