"Leave No Blog Behind
Joe Katzman sends this Chris Bowers analysis of the left- and right-blogosphere, thinking perhaps that I might have some reaction. As always, his judgment is spot on.
Provocatively titled, "Aristocratic Right Wing Blogosphere Stagnating," Bowers conducts some useful analysis before turning to vitriol, and worse: an inability to understand the nature of the conservative blogosphere's success. The gist is that because of the left-blogosphere's embrace of blogging platforms that enable users not only to leave comments, but to start their own diaries, traffic to left-wing sites is ballooning while less technically savvy righty blogs get left in the dust:
Of the twenty-four liberal blogs in the top quintile, Dailykos, TPM Café, Smirking Chimp, Metafilter, BooMan Tribune, MyDD, and Dembloggers are full-fledged community sites where members cannot only comment, but they can also post diaries / articles / polls. By comparison, there are no community sites among the top twenty-four conservative blogs. None, zip, zero, nada. This is particularly stunning when one considers the importance of the Free Republic community to the conservative netroots. While it would appear that there are hordes of Glenn Reynolds wannabe's among conservatives in the netroots, Redstate.org sticks out as the only success story for a community oriented blog within the conservative blogosphere. In fact, of the five most trafficked conservative blogs (over 200,000 page views per week), only one, Little Green Footballs, even allows comments, much less the ability to actually write a diary or a new article.
The result is that that while there are more righty blogs in the top 200, as measured by Blogads, liberals dominate in terms of traffic.
Bowers' finding is not unrelated to the results of the BlogPulse study of blog linkage in Campaign 2004:
Even though numbers of blogs were fairly balanced, conservative blogs showed a greater tendency to link to other blogs (84% linked to other blogs, 82% received a link) compared to liberal blogs (74% linked to other blogs, 67% received a link).
Bowers trashes the conservative blogosphere as "aristocratic" and "anti-meritocratic." But if anything, the tables are now turned. Ironically, it is the liberal blogosphere that has adopted the more corporate, top-down approach to blogging: to be heard, you must go to Kos, Atrios, and Josh Marshall. This has the effect of aggrandizing a few superstar bloggers at the top, but leaving smaller liberal blogs scrounging for the all-too-rare link from the top dogs. If you wish to strike out on your own, starting a blog with a flavor all its own, your support structure and your chances of getting noticed will be greater on the right.
What of the conservative blogosphere? Here's Bowers' cartoon-like description:
By comparison, right-wing blogs have pretty much only one means of finding a new voice in the blogosphere: when someone starts a new blog. The inability to operate within a community must be the primary reason behind the large number of conservative blogs in the second, third and fourth quintiles of the Blogads traffic rankings. In fact, of these 120 blogs, 77 of them are openly conservative / libertarian. There are swarms of new conservative voices looking to breakout in the right-wing blogosphere, but they are not even allowed to comment, much less post a diary and gain a following, on the high traffic conservative blogs. Instead, without any fanfare, they are forced to start their own blogs. However, because of the top-down nature of right-wing blogs, new conservative blogs remain almost entirely dependent upon the untouchable high traffic blogs for visitors. In short, the anti-community nature of right-wing blogs has resulted in a stagnant aristocracy within the conservative blogosphere that prevents the emergence of new voices and, as a result, new reasons for people to visit conservative blogs.
I'd say this is almost entirely inaccurate. Conservative blogs may be smaller, but they are more densely interconnected. Conversation on conservative blogs is just as likely to happen between blogs as within them. In fact, I've noticed a unique phenomenon emerging right here: quite often, my number of trackbacks rivals, and sometimes exceeds, the number of comments. In terms of solid, valuable interaction, trackbacks are pure gold: they tell you that someone thought enough of your post not just to respond to it on a seldom-read comments page or diary, but to give it prime real estate in their personal space, all the while sending visitors your way.
Bowers disparages the proliferation of large numbers of mid-tier conservative blogs, but in what way is this unhealthy? In fact, most of the cooperative, traffic-sharing arrangements in the blogosphere have emerged on the right. These days, it's hard to keep track of all the various carnivals and link-fests, from the Cotillion to Carnival of the Capitalists to Classiness All Around Us to Conservative Grapevine. These link-fests are vital to mid-range blogs getting noticed, and probably in keeping with its more selfish, celebrity-seeking nature, such link-fests are much less prevalent in the left-blogosphere. Also, contrast the top liberal and "conservative" blogs. Glenn Reynolds is much more generous in linking to other blogs than Markos.
We have quite a paradox here: liberal blogging is thoroughly centralized and highly stratified, with Kos at the very top of the pyramid. The conservative blogosphere is more cooperative and egalitarian, with plenty of Kumbaya-singing, beer-swilling, and link-swapping around the campfire. In the conservative blogopshere, it's leave no blog behind.
Of course, adopting the selfish S.O.B. approach to blogging has its perks: you get to pick the DNC chair. And oh, what a smart pick it was!"
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