Posted by aogSunday, 25 April 2004 at 10:35 TrackBack Ping URL

Hit the turbo button

I doubt even this will generate traffic for me, but in the discussion on male vs. female webloggers recently re-ignited by Right Wing News I see a clear lack of communication.

In my view, the anti-RWN side is reading “female bloggers should do sex talk and boobies (ST/B)” whereas I think that the actual point is that “female bloggers can do sex talk and boobies”. It’s like having a little turbo button on your weblog. You don’t have to use it, but it’s an easy way to generate additional traffic/links. There’s no “should” involved. The counter argument is “I’ll get less traffic/links if I don’t”. Yes, but less traffic/links option is the only one for guys.

The problem is that the supply of traffic/links is very limited compared to the demand. The most likely fate for any weblog, even if it’s very well written, is obscurity. It is certainly not the case that if you’re a male weblogger you get lots of traffic/link that can only be obtained as a female weblogger through the ST/B option.

This is really very similar to the academic career option. Most academic appointments are based on what seem to be very peripheral and irrelevant facts (like, say, political affiliation). There’s an unspoken assumption that this will have a negative effect on quality but that’s not at all clear. If you have 100 candidates for every position, almost all of them highly qualified, one can select the winner based on some very esoteric things without any impact on the quality of the candidate. Weblogs are the same way - there is a vast oversupply. It’s not a choice between a well written weblog and a mediocre one with a cute chick, it’s among a set of well written weblogs some of which are written by cute chicks (or people who claim to be).

What strikes me as odd, though, is that some of those who complain about these facts of life also insist on how their weblogs are expressions of themselves, not about conforming to someone else’s view. But why doesn’t that apply to the weblogs that preferentially link to weblogs with a “hot” author? Isn’t complaining about not getting traffic/links because one isn’t “hot” in effect complaining about how other people run their weblogs?

I think that one should decide how much additional traffic/links are worth and what one is willing to do to get it and learn to live with that choice of trade off. I’ll never be any where except the fringe because I’m not willing to spend the time on writing, but I’m OK with that because I decided I’d rather spend that time doing other things more important to me.