RazorsKiss has been saying some helpful things which coupled with Hugh’s book is helping to force many of us to look again at how we link to others. Indeed he lists several blogs who have all recently begun new initiatives to try and generate more linkage between us all.
I am thrilled that he has also started another new aggregator page focussing on apologetics. To me the more aggregators we have the better. I heavily depend on the blogdom of God, and other aggregators for content to link to and take an interest in.
Like many of us though I feel I could link more often. We should not all simply rely on aggregators but instead be willing to post those short posts which highlight great stuff we have seen elsewhere.
You might ask “why bother?”. Well the answer to that question is simple- links drive traffic and build community. It is also how a blog storm gets generated, and it is these storms that will bring christian blogs more interest from outside.
The prominent Christian blogs are there today because people like reading them and have linked often to them. Every single link counts in this game and can be seen as a vote in favor of that site.
So, running aggregators, scanning many blogs and looking for posts to link to not only helps our bloggers block it also is an act of kindness to our fellow Christians and a genuine way to increase the profile of a range of christian bloggers. It is vital that the profile is raised outside of Christian circles also, but as we begin to break into the top rankings of the TLB ecosystem more and more and as traffic to the most well read Christian blogs increases, the non-christian blogosphere will sit up and take notice.
I would like to propose a true blogging solution, one which at first sight sounds like it has unecessary repetition and overlap in it. The reality, however is that it is the very redundancy of this system and the fact that it can grow and continue without any central organising system that makes it viable on the world wide web. When I am browsing my favorite blogs and the aggregators, there is a strong chance that I may pick up the same piece of info possibly posted in a different way in more than one place. This is very good for often it is only on the second (or even third!) exposure to something that I sit up and take notice. This need for a repeated message is one of two reasons why I frequently generate a blizzard of posts on a given subject on my own blog. The other reason is that this is just the way my mind works!
So, this is how I see things developping- what do people think?
1. Blogs4God.
Lets not forget this, and ensure that new Christian blogs continue to be added over there. At one stage MeanDean who runs the show over there and I considered me getting more involved over there. Certainly I feel they provide a useful service which is complemented by other efforts to bring Christians together.
2. The Blogdom of God and other aggregators
The Blogdom of God itself continues to grow. There is no doubt in my mind that it has contributed to the prominence of a number of Christian bloggers who are listed in it. People sometimes forget that in a sense the Blogdom is two distinct things.
Firstly it is a rather long blogroll that some long suffering blogs (many of them incidently quite prominent ones) include in its entirety on their sites. It is not at all compulsory for someone to include the blogroll to be in the Alliance however, and instead prospective members are asked to select blogs from the list that they want to link to on their blog- the more the merrier. As the list grows I am likely to get stricter about the numbers of links people need to have to other Christian blogs before I will add them- after all joining the blogdom instantly gives you a bundle of links to your blog- it is only reasonable to expect something back in return.
Secondly, there is an aggregator. This provides an overview of all posts from a number of the blogs in the Alliance, but also notably some that are not listed in the Alliance mainly as they are already part of one of the alternative lists over at the Truth Laid Bear. The number of blogs included means that posts do not stay on the page very long but you can search an archive and if you want a quick glance at what the christain blogopshere is saying I honestly doubt there is a better place to go.
What has begun to happen in recent months is that a number of more specialised Christian Aggregators have sprung up. I rejoice at this, and have included as complete a list of the more specific aggregators on the Blogdom of God page. Thus a Christian Blog surfer can zip over to the Blogdom of God, catch an overview and then hone in on an area of interest to them- be it vineyard churches, apologetics, reformed blogs or whatever. Blogs can belong to more than one aggregator and each aggregator is managed independently of each other. Thus a rather elegant decentralised approach exists. Anyone wanting to start a new aggregator which covers a different area is only an email to me away from appearing on the Blogdom of God aggregators page.
I have an idea for another aggregator which should help with this notion of using prominent blogs to direct people to intermittent but good posters. This aggregator would be entitled Twelve Christian Blogs. This site would aggregate 12 prominent Christian Blogs who are committed to serving the community of Christian blogs. Each of these blogs would have a different flavour, and each of them would have two things in common. Firstly they would be consistently listed by the Truth Laid Bear ecosystem as having lots of other bloggers linking to them. Secondly, they would each often give back to the blogging community by linking to the posts of other Christian bloggers. These blogs and the hundreds of other Christian bloggers out there have the potential to make massive impact. If you wanted a quick glance at what the Christian blogosphere is speaking about right now you woukd go by that page. Each of the bloggers would also be happy to receive a personalised email if a blogger believed they had posted something that will be of interest to one of them.
3. Chrisitan Blogrolls
A growing number of Christian blogrolls managed by various individuals are now available for inclusion on your site. It is a great idea to include one or more of these, or better yet run your own blogroll which highlights the blogs YOU like. The medium of blogging is at its heart democratic, and your vote counts. If you don’t like a blog don’t add it to your blogroll. If you dont like what it says but want to draw attention to it in a negative way, by all means link to it in a post and say where you disagree. But please do add both permanent links and post links to as many good blogs as you can find! It is this that will make all the difference.
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