The Screaming Meme II
I have been teaching Global Internet Marketing this term. It has been more of an education for me than for the students in class. They have stepped up to the cyber-plate and created a host of amazing blogs and websites and some already generating popular content on subjects from Chinese Cooking to Study in Macau.
One of our brainstorming sessions involved how to bring new readers to a blog still digging in the sandbox. The “sandbox effect” is geek-speek for an unknown newcomer who cannot get a good ranking in Google even if he is popular until the blog has achieved a certain maturity. It theoretically keeps link-buying cheaters from playing with the big kids for a time.
So, we searched Technorati (banned in the mainland) for ideas and discovered that the top blog (Boing Boing) has 27,000 other blogs linking to it. The blog last on the top 100 list has some 3,000 plus links coming in. It is a big sandbox over at Technorati!
But, the top favorited blog ( Engadget) has about 1,700 people tagging it as a fave while the #100 site has less than 200 cheerleaders. So, in a school where students have scores of friends it should be easy to get folks to catapult you into celebrity, right?
Well, it seems, after reading a post at the fine Singaporean blog East Coast Life (nominated for “hottest mommy blogger” in the Blogger’s Choice Awards), that our class was not the only one to notice this disparity and bloggers are taking a multi-level marketing approach to upping their visibility. Here’s the hot momma’s (she is really attractive) take on the MEME and the challenge:
“Most of these Top 100 Favorited Blogs are Internet . Are they really your favorite? Technorati has become the marketing and ranking tool for these marketers, hasn’t it?
Well, I would probably incur the wrath of the Internet marketers and I have nothing against them. This is ‘Survivor in Blogosphere’ – You outwit, outplay, outlast other bloggers. Everyone is entitled to a little shameless advertising. I’m grabbing mine! hehe…..
For every blogger who clicks my Technorati Fave Button, (Please leave a comment so I would know. Thanks, dearie.), I’ll return the favor. Fair?
It’s gonna be harder to get into Technorati Top 100 Favorited Blogs due to the tremendous promotion going round the blogosphere. Only the early birds would catch the worms!
I know there will be many who won’t be bothered with these link love exchange thingy, but please Fave Me! I want in!
Keep the train moving!
***Start Copying Here:***
Here are the rules:
1) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.
2) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE list below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can accessible for, go ahead and change the title of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.
3) Add 5 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs (i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.fave.com)
4) Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good kharma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.”
Here ’tis (and yes, I will fave ayone on my roll who just asks). And no, there is no penalty for non-participation:
This is to Fave Onemanband:
And this one needs real attention as it is associated with the Charity trip across China:
Travel China-r-us the (Fave the China Dreamblogue)
Cartoons-r-us by Shtikl (Fave it!)
Bollywood’-r-us Miss Bolly (Fave it!)
Indonesia-r-us Adriantai (Fave it!)
Gay-r-us Scott-o-rama (Fave it!)
Asian-girls-r-us Stone Camel (Fave it!)
Singlish-r-us at East Coast Life (Fave!)
And let the games begin!
10 responses so far
My first Meme. I am so honored.
I can’t click on the fave links yet because I don’t have a way over the wall here at home in Guangzhou. So tomorrow when I get into my office I will do it first thing.
Thank you for adding me to your list. I will have to give some thought on who to add.
Oh, you might want to fix the fave link for Scott. His points to me.
Not that I don’t mind the extra votes.
Prof Lonnie!
I’m not on your train!? Oh… come on! Be fair to me! hehe…
Thanks for your fave! When I’m in China, I’ll go look for you. Let’s have tea!
But what’s the whole point… it’s reciprocal link farming. What’s next? Incoming and outgoing stats a la 1995?
Being pragmatic: when one writes something others viewing it is good. Being more pragmatic: if those viewing the content are not the target audience they may be a waste of time to target, and those seeking focussed content may be put off by the poor signal-noise ratio.
Hey Alex,
I hope you catch the tongue-in-cheek in all of this…And no, it is not link farming as the links off the front page disappear off of Technorati after 6 months…If anything, this is detrimental to a site like mine that already has way too many outgoing links…Likewise, any links not perm’ attached to the front page will evaporate in the algorithms….
Closely look at the top 100 list on Technorati and you will see that over half of the sites listed are how-to-monetize-your-site-for-big-bucks-blogs. Are they truly the most favorited sites or….???
My hope is that a ton of folks will like what they see on the likes of http://blogofdreams.com (under construction…give it 3-4 days) as it is going to be a lot of fun and do a lot of good….
Likewise, this was a classroom exercise meant to highlight how to exploit marketing holes that exist. Most of my students are interested in creating blogs that can be monetized. They desire to have an ongoing readership only if it brings in more revenue. The MEME stopped in its tracks a legit attempt to get some new blogs more traffic….Having your classmates favorite your blog was the original goal, alas….
Just an FYI: I am firing Google from my site: their recent actions aimed against certain minority group blogs deeply concerns me. That and their continuing stance on censorship (they say they regret their actions, but have not changed anything) demands an act of conscience on my part.
Please take it for what it is…….
East Coast: Oops! Added!
Glad to add all the above to my pesonal tech page.
My work weblog could use a few links and favs
Hope the code works.
Glad to add the above to my personal tech list.
I’d appreciate any interested persons adding my work blog to their favorites.
Add to Technorati Favorites
thanks
Just thinking…how far up on google’s rankings could a site be WITHOUT any inbound links?
Now that would be an interesting experiment.
Dave,
I am willing to invest in a nothing site, refuse links and see how we do…..I will keep ya posted….
Done!
Good idea!
I’ll post the post… //Dag