A new study analyzes reciprocal attention in blogging. The authors conclude that “the activity of bloggers is found to be related to the size and level of reciprocity within a blogger’s network.” The study also finds that bloggers who don’t participate in reciprocity are punished with a lower number of readers. In other words, the Internet hasn’t remotely damaged the arts of logrolling and mutual back-scratching. (HT: Free Exchange) [%comments]
The Secret to a Successful Blog
TAGS: Blogging
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Take a closer look at that paper and you’ll see that the authors analyzed a dataset from LiveJournal. As far as I know, there aren’t many respectable bloggers hanging out at LiveJournal anymore…
In academia citations (which is a metric of the value of the research) work the same way.
Livejournal? Wow. I have an abandoned blog there too! I wonder if it was used in the calculations?
There’s an element of SEO going on here too, involving link-bait techniques, three-way linking, etc. I occasionally mention these things in my blog on internet marketing:
baldmtpress.wordpress.com
Yeah, reciprocity does work!!
Makes sense to me. I don’t have a lot of readers, but the few regular commenters are sharp tacks, which definitely helps keep the conversations going. And I make a point to read their blogs and comment when I can, too.
Full feeds are important. I miss the Go Fug Yourself, but I’m a lazy clicker.
(hardtobehuman.blogspot.com)
I wrote something alot like this on my blog. Check the post called Masturbatory Exhibtionism Less Rewarding than Mutually Masturbatory Exhibitionism.