and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

aardvark.dj picked up on my attempt at dialogue - re:blinking. I think he has a lot of valid points (one of which is: my archives don't work.. why is that? hunk of junk). He points out that "the prime value of the internet... is its interlinked nature." He argues that people won't have a desire to link a blog with little content and lots of links because they will never need to go back. They will get what links they need and never revisit. They will also not link a blog with content they don't enjoy since they will not have desire to go back and will probably not have a desire to recommend it to others. Ergo, links act as a sort of natural recommendation system. Amazon has it's book reviews, the weblog has it's links - same difference. By measuring the number of incoming links to a blog you are measure it's virtual worth..

But my only arguement with all of this is: Isn't it just a big popularity contest? The more links I have the more I'm worth?

My whole rant about the freedom micro-publication gives us - the unshackling of the chains of mass-production - outlines my issues with the link-value system. I think it's great that I can go on the web now and get custom t-shits and coffee mugs with my own design on them in small quantities. I think it's great that I can visit opinion pieces that I will never find in the New York Times. But as links become currency we re-introduce the cost-prohibitive factor in micro-publication. The little guy gets squeezed out..

But isn't this whole blogging revolution all about the little guy? I have all of two readers here at Erp. Maybe three on a good day. I know one of them and the other one is on the other side of the pond.. I have such a small audience that I don't have even the slightest urge to give them what they want. I give them what I want, and they'll like it or leave. Isn't that the virtue of a mini-rag? I don't pander. I don't react to market variations. I don't answer to a board. So sure, most people will leave and not come back but it's okay because this micro-publication on the www is not cost-prohibitive. What if, however, I had 10 visitors? 100? Even 1000? Would my attitude change? Would I hold back, change up, deliver filtered content? Tony, who probably gets 1000 or more hits a day, admits that he filters his content. He tries his best to keep the boobies to a minimum and the writing at a PG-13 level. Admirable - but at the expensive of ...?

Links as currency introduce a market into the blogosphere. The work I do (content) is paid for in (incoming) links. If no one wants my work, I don't get paid. If I want to buy something - pay for something (exert influence) with my (outgoing) links then I'm screwed because I have no currency (incoming links).

This is all abstract enough but my point is simple: Everything, left to it's own devices and unregulated by men in black suits, evolves into a naturaly selective system. We are experiencing the capitalization of the weblog.

aardvark.dj pointed out Rebecca Blood's Sept. 2000 essay on the history of weblogs and she puts it well there:

... the unassailable truth is that corporate media and commercial and governmental entities own most of the real estate. Dell manages more webpages than all of the weblogs put together. Sprite's PR machine can point more man-hours to the promotion of one message--"Obey Your Thirst"--than the combined man-hours of every weblogger alive. Our strength--that each of us speaks in an individual voice of an individual vision--is, in the high-stakes world of carefully orchestrated messages designed to distract and manipulate, a liability. We are, very simply, outnumbered.

And while the numbers may have drastically changed since Sept. of 2000, the issue remains.