Excellent point, Steven. Neither have I, but I did just visit a blog for the first time by following a trackback to this post because I knew it was relevant to the subject of the post.

OT posts are a goulash of links, and are being used primarily to ‘game’ NZ Bear’s system–it is his system, and participation isn’t compulsory.

If the purpose of OTs is simply to provide exposure to the bloggers who participate, then why request a link back to the post?

And why is it that bloggers who host OT posts (by simply using a feature provided by their blogging software) are ‘just trying to gain readers’ or ‘help other bloggers’ (I’ve read both assertions in posts on this subject), but NZ Bear, who’s put a considerable amount of time and effort into developing and maintaining his system, is some kind of tin-pot dictator?

If you ask me, NZ is being very gracious in dealing with his critics. Ecosystem membership isn’t an entitlement program.

I have no problem with self-promotion. It is pretty much a must. However, my problem with at least some of the trackback business is that it was explicitly designed to generate TTLB evolution. That is faux success when all one is doing is essentialy agree en masse to link to other blogs. It isn’t based on the quality of content at all.

Sean,

I didn’t mean to suggest that Glenn’s success is solely about time, but I have no doubt that the act that he was an early blogger helped greatly. He certainly was one of the early bloggers who was noticed by the media–being a law prof no doubt helped.

Still, I also have no doubt that if he was starting afresh now that he would be popular, but not THE blog.

Carnival of the Vanities is up at Don Surber’s. Recommended posts:

Bingo. I also spend a lot of time scouring Technorati and Google for others blogging on subjects I’m discussing. All of the open track back self promoters have also spent a heckuva lot of time promoting other blogs.

I don’t grok that. How are you out of whack? Traffic and links are two different things.

Do columnists and radio hosts who blog have an advantage in generating traffic? Sure they do, and more power to them. The TTLB Ecosystem is a different animal. If someone with a few thousand hits a day figures out a way to bust their butt and generate as many links as Hugh Hewitt, isn’t that sort of… American?

That’s not so easy now. I’d like to see (and thought the PM/OSM would be) a place that could highlight original content from smaller scale blogs – giving them a chance for a greater readership without having to resort to tricks like the trackback orgies.

Unfortunately, I don’t see OSM/PM being that vehicle. They are too interested in the money aspect.

As one of those blogs with about 12 readers, I agree whole heartedly with your statement that readers are what’s important. To me, getting a mention and a link from another blogger that I respect, and has taken the time to read what I have written and point it out to his or her readers, is a lot more gratifying than seeing my blog move up and down the TTLB Ecosystem scale.

Back in August when I posted all of the pictures I had taken out in Crawford when the Sheehan Circus first got started, I got a lot of hits thanks to Michelle Malkin and other bloggers linking directly to the picture post. Very gratifying, but ultimitely it only did a little in building up the number of daily readers I had. But because of that initial link and all the ones that followed, I shot all the way up into the high end of the large mammal end of the scale. Way, way out of line for a small blog like mine. It didn’t make sense to me, no matter how cool it was to me personally. And after a week it was gone.

Working with other small bloggers in helping promote each others blogs by commenting on stories, expanding on what they started, or by being skeptical of what each of us was saying has done a lot more in slowly raising the profile of our blogs in a very competitive environment. We’re doing it by boosting the quality of our writing and acknowledging the good work of our fellows.

Getting the recognition is all well and good, but I’d rather get it by writing good posts, having fun with it, and being myself. I’ve never participated in a carnival or a trackback party. It just felt wrong for some reason. Maybe I’m too humble, but that’s just how I feel. So the Bear going in and changing how the Ecosystem works doesn’t bother me in the slightest.