Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Whose hits are bigger?

I remember when that Mondo guy wrote about "the warbloggers" and challenged Glenn Reynolds to some sort of hit-measuring contest (mine bigger than yours..). I've now been linked by both (and the last instapundit link was ages ago - probably about 10K per day in Glenn's increasing traffic), and I can tell you for a fact that being linked by instapundit creates about 50 times the hits.

What does it all mean? I dunno. My own hits are puny compared to just about anyone, but I make enough new acquaintances to make this strange hobby fun for me - and I don't have to worry about bandwidth. Shoot, I did this for a month without a hit counter and didn't think anyone was looking. Then, all of a sudden, Matt Welch, whom I check in on regularly, mentioned me out of the blue, and I did some time as a "link-slut".

I might as well go on record on the "importance of blogs" issue here while I'm on the subject. Individually blogs are totally unimportant, this one in particular. Cumulatively, I think this is an interesting phenomenon that will begin to change the News Media and, perhaps, media in general. The bloggers I see represent the most avid consumers of news media, and blogging is a change in how they consume. It is a much more interactive way of consuming media. News media will see this change in their marketplace and begin to change how they deliver information - more hard information linked together in one place, more information that can be downloaded and inspected, the talkbacks and news "forums" you already see springing up on the sites of major newspapers. And, of course, we will see the occasional desperate aspiring pundit trolling furiously for whatever hits he/she can get, taking poorly-conceived potshots in the hopes that he/she can build that heretofore elusive audience by becoming the "anti-Sullivan", "antiKaus " or "anti-Postrel".

In sum:

Blogging as a news consumer phenomenon=will spur innovation in news media

Individual blogs like this = not much More Than Zero. Just "For the love of the game..."

UPDATE: Yup, still true. Maybe 75 times as many. Actually, I can only see 10 or so of the last 100 hits that aren't instapundit. Thank you, Glenn, for making MTZ drink from the hit-firehose one more time.

2nd Update: for a visual of the difference, remember the "Behind the Deadlines" link was Wednesday (2/6) morning and Instapundit Thursday (2/7) afternoon, now click here.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at February 6, 2002 08:54 PM | Technorati inbound links