I've blogged myself in to circles

If you blog you might be read but there is also chance that you might not be. But one thing is certain, if you don't blog you will never be read.The past week or so I have not blogged at all. I think it was a necessary break for me. I have been suffering from over-exposure to blogging, online bubbles, "inner-circles" and circular debates, discussions and topics. I think I've saturated my interests and lost some semblance of relevance recently.I'm happy to admit that.Stii said it the other day on twitter and I think I'm willing to reiterate it here; "If you have nothing good to say then rather don't say anything at all." And I haven't.However, I've been taken to task, not literally but in my rankings, stats and anylitics on both this blog and SA Rocks.That basic premise is that when I blog, people read. Not always or every time but there is a greater chance that people read what I write when I actually get around to writing. I've been relentless with SA Rocks, blogging every week day for almost an entire year straight. This can take its toll and I think it has taken its toll on me.At this point blogging becomes a chore that one is obligated to complete. I don't want that to be the case and nor do my readers.I personally feel like publishers of blogs in SA have become a bit stagnant of late, nit-picky and petty on various issues (myself included) and this has thrown me out of whack and left me with little colleague-initiated inspiration or motivation.There's nothing wrong with that, ebbs and flows I think, ebbs and flows. These things take place and then bounce back and get better or worse. For now though I think that my recent illness which prompted a tactical break from blogging has helped me to realise the mutually beneficial relationship I share with my readers and fellow bloggers in SA. I need them to inspire me and keep me on my toes and they read what I write. Without one the other suffers.In the end, if you never write, you'll never be read but if I write myself in to a circle it's sometimes better not to write at all.

Blog Post With Over 900 Comments

Holy baloney, 900 comment is insane. I think one time a while back I got about 50 comments and I was so happy I almost shat myself.The Dilbert blog (if you don't read it, you should) posted yesterday asking its users to answer a question about restaurant marketing and event hosting.On reading the post I was astonished at how flattering the author was (however sarcastically) to his readers call them "The Great Blog Brain". In return for his flattery he got 900+ answers to his posed questions. Don't ask me what they all said, there were 900 of them remember.This does make me ask a some questions and question some answers about blogging and the approach some, if not most bloggers take with their blogs. Does it not make more sense to ask rather than dictate? Don't get me wrong bloggers with authority and a genuine knack for writing then by all means go all Fidel up in your blog. If you have no skills, no talent, no authority and nothing else going for you, then maybe you should be asking a few more questions of your readers.Is that not what social media is meant to be? Google has all the answers apparently, but that is not true. It can't tell you what love is meant to feel like, it can't tell you how sore a broken arm is, but I bet you that a few readers could give you brilliant answers to both of those questions.I think an experiment might be in order. I think that I might try this tactic and see what comes of it. Let's ask some questions.

Is Technorati A Load Of Shit?

I must be honest here, I was not much of a ranking person but recently I have been blogging about the topic alot. Technorati is only one of the many targets I have on my hitlist. Technorati was a tool that I had only heard about it in the major geek circles up until recently.One of two things has happened; 1.I have joined these geek circles (happily) and 2.Technorati went mainstream to a degree.I am banking somewhat on option 2 here. Now that Technorati is more mainstream than it used to be there are more blogs on the site, a lot of blogs. That means that you can try your damndest to work your way up the rankings on their site but to no avail. I think that there is some sort of common misconception from bloggers like myself: The higher you rank the more hits you get. That might be true to some extent but it just isn't true in all situations.Looking at Amatomu's ranking of blogs in the News and Politics section and focusing on the top 12 one can see that Technorati ranking is not directly proportional to reads in any way shape or form:

Lets go with the left table above and work our way down:By Reads in News and Politics (Amatomu):#1 - East Coast Radio Blog: Does not feature in top 20 by Technorati Ranking#2 - My Africa: #15 by Technorati Ranking#3 - Wired Gecko: #4 by Technorati Ranking#4 - Black Looks: #1 by Technorati Ranking#5 - It's almost supernatural: #7 by Technorati Ranking#6 - commentary: #8 by Technorati Ranking#7 - the SA Navy etc...: Not in top 30 by Technorati Ranking#8 - SA Rocks: #2 by Technorati Ranking#9 - SomeAmongUs: #9 by Technorati Ranking#10 - The Antidote: #16 by Technorati Ranking#11 - Urban Sprout: #18 by Technorati Ranking#12 - Constitutionally speaking: #13 by Technorati RankingThe East Coast Radio and My Africa blogs are two perfect examples of what I am talking about. They are at numbers 1 and 2 respectively but do not feature predominantly in the Technorati rankings of Amatomu.Can someone explain this to me? Why do people place so much emphasis on rankings on blog sites like Technorati if they have no real impact? Am I missing something? Am I meant to be waiting to break the threshold somewhere that will all of a sudden open the floodgates to millions of pageviews? Is that threshold 20 000 on Technorati? Is it 10 000 or maybe the top 1000? I just don't know.Now it seems as though Technorati has completely removed the ranking system on their site and have listed blogs according to "Authority". This blogs authority is 65, SA Rocks is 122... how are you looking? Someone please tell me where my authority of 65 puts me? Top 50 000, 60 000?? I am so lost without the ranking!Then there is always the thought that when you get to number 1000 on the Technorati ranking system that you are not the only blog at number 1000, there are a gagillion other blogs who have