Phil over at Squash has an interesting piece on AtariBoy and his meteoric rise to the top of the blogging charts. Well, perhaps not the blogging charts (I’ve yet to see any Technorati changes), but at least the WordPress.com charts.
It’s easy to get listed on those charts. All you have to do is have a link from Digg, and you will see your pageviews and visitor count skyrocket. The same thing happened to me last week, and though I never took the top spot from Scoble, I was #2 for three days running after the initial Digg link. The truth about Digg and traffic is that ANYONE who has a link featured on the main page will see traffic go through the roof; the proof-of-concept release of Songbird today is a perfect example. They got hammered with traffic so badly that I’ve yet to be able to get to the main page today, much less access the download link. It’s a good thing that the mirrors went up quickly, or else it would be a few days before they could actually even spread the software to the masses.
The Squash article proves one thing. If nothing else, bloggers love talking about each other. If you talk about another blogger and link to him, then chances are pretty good that he’s going to link back to you and talk about you. We love that. It feeds the ego and nothing more, but we do it anyway. Why? Because we DO have an ego, and we want people to talk about us. In some strange fashion, it’s validation. At least for those of us who have no lives whatsoever.
I know I seem to be bashing the concept, but I’m not. I’m just as guilty as anyone else. Hell, I’m about to release a website dedicated to this type of thing, and I can guarantee you that it will have people talking about each other in record numbers.
Ego ADD- Freud had it right the first time. Our self-image or ego is based largely on communication. Whether through movies, relationships, cell phones, fashion, or now blogging, all of our self-image is linked with how others respond to us as individuals. In the recent explosion of the communication era, we have so many more avenues through which to build or tear down our egos. We are becoming more and more ego ADD. The constant rollercoaster of self-discovery is on turbo power with ever-increasing stimulus of communication. For example, yesterday, I was at a coffe shop in the Heights area (Diedrich’s, it is fabulous. You must go.) and almost everyone there had an I-pod in their ears, a laptop in their face, coffee in their hand, and a cell phone out on the table. Constant deposits and withdraws in the internal ego-self image bank. Of course, not that I am not also the cofffe drinking, Ipod listening, memo typing girl myself because I am. But, you must balance the communication overload with quiet self-reflection. The consistent communication surplus has put our emotional health on the fritz and given everyone ego ADD. Remedy = glass of wine, hot bath, book, and NO cell phone.