Wow. The world of blogging sure has changed since I started this blog back in 2001. Back then – even though that was only a few years ago – it all seemed a lot simpler. People formed links to other people’s site with webrings (essentially just a little text link to the next site in the ring), or you linked to some of your favourite blogs in your links page, or – if you were modern enough – in a sidebar.
Today it seems that all of that has evolved. Now, it’s all about "social networking" and "user powered" rankings and you seem to have to sign yourself up to any number of different ranking sites and odd gadgets that you can click on in order to rate pages.
I’m sure that these sites, like Digg, Myspace, Technorati and so on are wonderful for the 1% of sites that reaches the exponential pinnacle of everything else out there, but I’ve got to admit to having a few issue with them, too -
- Buttons, Buttons, Buttons.
- It seems like the love has gone.
- What about the majority?
Buttons – There’s so many different ones. I’ve seen weblogs with entries with bars at the bottom where there are buttons linking to ten or more different ranking sites, sat there waiting to be clicked on. But how do I, the reader, know which one is worth clicking (if any?). How do I, the content-creator, know which button is worth adding to my entries (if any?). There’s no site out there to say which ranking buttons to use. Or if there is, then it’d be pointless, because everyone else is already using those buttons. What hope has your click got to make any major difference? In short, too many buttons, not enough clarity.
I could just be making it up, but it just seems like the whole thing is very clinical. You add buttons to a site because it’s the way that things work these days, people click buttons on sites because it’s what you should do. The claim is that the sites are user-led, but in reality it seems to be led by group conciousness and trend. Adding a button doesn’t offer with it the same sort of personal touch that used to come from directly-linking to someone else’s site, or from specifically joining a web ring of closely related sites. I suppose the closest you would get to that these days would be to join a "community", but even there, a successful community is massive and generically faceless, and a small community brings with it little of the supposed benefit that is meant to be on offer (since it wouldn’t be necessarily highly promoted or participated in.)
Lastly, I have to look at how these things help the general blogger. People at the top of the pile can, I’m sure, benefit massively, because the exposure from being in the top of these highly visited sites is massive. That’s great, but it’s also operates as these sites’ own worst enemy. To explain, popularity breads popularity. That means that a few sites will, through already-generated popularity, regularly be at the top of the stack, and being at the top of the stack brings more popularity – which keeps them there. This means that the whole concept of the continually-evolving user-generated list is flawed, because it will remain generally static, with the same key sites always sitting near the top. Yes, I expect you’ll get quick wins on some occasions that will produce a momentary change, but in (short) time that will even itself out and revert to form. What all of that means – as far as I can tell – is that, from a content-side, the vast majority of sites don’t benefit (much). From a user-side, I find that I can’t access the niche content, because it’s never going to be ranked up.
If a recommendation site is only telling me about sites that I already know about, what good is it? I’m just not sure. If I’m just starting out – as user or contributor – where do I begin? I’m not sure about that either really. I get something of a feeling that I could be missing the point – but if the point isn’t obvious, then that’s not a great win in my book.
