What’s the point of a blogroll?
Now I’m back living in the UK there’s going to be more UK politics posts on this blog. Hell, it’s not as if I’ve ever really left, politically… But in terms of blogging it seems I’ve completely dropped off the radar, at least if blogrolls are anything to go by.
I’ve purged any blogs off my two blogrolls below that don’t also link here. That means there are now a measly 4 UK blogs on my blogroll, and I’m web designer of 3 of those! Things are slightly more rosy on the EU front.
Am I just victim of the power law distribution of UK blogs? I’m one of the small ones in the long tail… Or is it that blogging has moved on, and blogrolls are a relic of a former time?
Anyway, if you want me to link to you then please comment or contact me.
Photo: Neezee “Blogroll @ newthinking store wc” April 12, 2007 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution
Ooh. New theme.
Don’t like it 😉
I just keep the ones I look at regularly. Which reminds me, must update…
I don’t really understand why you “purged any blogs off my two blogrolls below that don’t also link here”
Usually I don’t add links in my blogroll based on reciprocity, but on interest of the blog or interest for the blogger.
To be honnest, I have also “purged” my blogroll from interesting links (both in term of blog and blogger) but only on a “personal” basis 😉
Otherwise, I consider more important links in the notes than blogroll, and very often make links to blogs which appear in categories of this blogroll directly linked to my blog’s main topics…
I think a short blogroll of “must read” blogs can be quite useful. When it drags on for pages and pages, it can be an eyesore.
I’m liking the new look, btw! Plenty of space on the left and right for a couple of page elements – or perhaps minimalist is the way to go.
I use a separate blogspot site for my blogrolls. I only link to a handful of sites that I like but visit infrequently and might otherwise forget about. I don’t worry about whose linking to me, but then my blog is a personal scrapbook that isn’t looking for an audience. I did use to be more preoccupied with the whole “who’s linking to me/who isn’t” thing when I was blogging on Ordovicius, and like many other political bloggers I was obsessed with getting people to link to my blog, but in retrospect I think (even though I was successful in that regard) that it was a huge waste of my time. It’s like some inane and pointless pursuit of some sort of pseudocelebrity. I also think blogrolls are ugly to look at, and the longer they are, the uglier they are.
Anyway, I hope you don’t devote too much time to UK politics. If anything I’d like to see eurobloggers such as yourself from across all 27 member states getting together and creating something on the lines of Slugger O’Toole.
Oh and welcome back!
I’d say it’s looking like blogging has moved on, and not just in terms of blogrolls. For many of my clients I am finding the trend is for more of their content to be consumed through Facebook, Twitter and mobile devices. Does it even matter what a blog looks like these days and what features it has on-site when traffic is being so directly driven towards specific content?