The power law and the long tail of "small blogs"

I am enjoying interacting with Matthew Self who has now replied to my post entitled “Why blog”.

Matthew seems to understand the vision I expressed for christian blogging and later in the post encourages people to link to their favorite blogs. He seems to minimise the role that he himself can have, however stating:

“….[Adrian s] idea is to use Christian blogs and cross-promotional devices to increase the influence of the bloggers who best represent Christianity.

I’m a sucker for corporate agendas and his “pyromarketing” idea was the right kind of practical application to inspire me. However, I didn’t feel like I could have a role in his plan. I’m not a preacher or a teacher, and I certainly don’t have a high-traffic blog. I’m not sure I ever want the latter.

To deal with the last point first, if he continues to write as humbly and insightfullly as he has thus far he may not have a choice about having a high-traffic blog. As people grow to like his blog and link to it the traffic will surely flow. People often assume that high traffic blogs have sought that postion out in some way differently to other blogs.

I know that my blog has more attention than some, and to some degree I am pleased to see such measures of so-called blogging “success” as being listed in the top 20 of all UK blogs. I read an implication possibly wrongly into Matthews post that I was one of some kind of blogging elite that he did not want to become a part of . I do not see myself in that way in the slightest, and am aware that this blog has a LOT less attention than many others. Having made a brief forray a few months back into being a primate at the ecosystem , I quickly dropped back to a postion that I have become quite comfortable with over the last few months- hovering just outside the top 100 blogs listed at the ecosystem ranked by links.

I do not seek blogging greatness, but am aware that largely the decision about whether I will rise or fall in the rankings is almost entirely outside my hands. As things stand today if just 41 more links were made to my blogs from existing or new ecosystem members then I would once again become a “playful primate” whether I wanted to or not. Even if that were to happen, however, the differnce in cudos between blogs that are at the top of that 100 and those at the bottom is substantial.

I am also aware that by the measure that perhaps counts more than links, traffic, my blog remains a small blog with a ranking at ecosystem well outside the top 500. I am under no illusions of being anything other than a small blog myself at the moment.

I do not consider myself to be one of the trully influential Christian bloggers. There is in fact only a very small group of them: 16.HughHewitt.com , 21.La Shawn Barber’s Corner (1639) and 29.the evangelical outpost A while back I advocated bloggers should consider linking to popular blogs like these three and others from the group of christian blogs who hover as I do just outside the “top 100”. Someone said in a comment that those blogs need links the least. The truth is they need links the most if they are going to rise to further prominence. If we want more than 3 Christian blogs to be in very small group of blogs that are considered genuinely influential, we NEED what is called the blogging “tail” to link to them to help them climb the increasingly cliff-like rankings. In fact ALL of these blogs are actually part of the blogging tail with instapundit at the head! A handful of links to Matthews blog will vastly increase his traffic and his ecosystem ranking. Once a blog begins to climb the number of links to continue that ascent just gets greater and greater.

Of course, I wouldnt dream of telling any blogger who they should link to. The whole point of the blogosphere is that whilst as an indidual someone like Matthew Self may feel very insignificant as part of a massive group of blogs he can play a vital roll in building the success of the Christian blogosphere as a whole and a few “top christian blogs” in particular. Each blogger should take the roll he or she has very seriously and make appropriate decisions about who they want to link to and who they dont want to.