ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_290405

French exception

French is the second largest language and half of students in France blog. This is due, in no small part, to Skyradio telling their listeners to Skyblog what they think at most commercial breaks -- a multi-million dollar advertising investment from an MSM to make blogging cool. Effective, considering they have 1.5 million bloggers according to Pierre Bellanger's presentation.

but

Basically, nobody blogs in Germany despite their population and broadband penetration

My real reason though to quote this article is the following paragraph:

While lots of blog pundits are quick to agree that the real action isn't blogs as publishing (aside: Doc's presentation put the nail in content instead of conversation) -- but chatter with friends that happens to be in the open. We have explored this as part of the network structure, demographics, interests, everything. Barak from 6A noted that focus groups show people consistently think of bloggers are people who are self-important and have too much time on their hands. My wife, who was outed as part of the community this week, and is my favorite focus group, agrees violently. And nobody gives a damn who has more traffic than who.

David Foster Wallace writes:

TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.

I would like to point out the similarities here: the reason bloggers who blog about blogs get a high ranking is simply because interest in blogging is the lowest common denominator among all bloggers. Power Law takes care of the rest. This is also the same reason why people who blog about sex, politics, or stir strong emotions (e.g. hatebloggers or people who keep strong, personal diaries) tend to also float to the top.

We all know that the good stuff happens at the long tail. But the lowest common denominators still are the most popular ones. That's just how the world is, and that's just how the free market works. I mean, what else would the blogosphere be except that the world's largest free market - anyone is free to join for free, and anyone can link to anyone else with no limitations, with links as a currency and popularity as wealth? (He said, with a glimmer of humour in the corner of his eye, but still gazing at this adversary with level, serious eyes.)

Think about it.