I thought the same thing. What I came to learn is that getting traffic and gaining readers is not necessarily the same thing. I’ve gained far more readers through my post writing and commenting on other blog posts than I did with 2000 Bloggers. I certainly gained more feed subscribers writing and commenting than I did during the 2000 Bloggers.

Really, the way to build traffic is first through great content, second through linking out from your content to other blogs, and third, commenting on other blogs to draw interest in yours.

Yeah. I would say that the positives of the blogosphere are far outweighing the negatives.

As Michael Wesch’s video illustrates, the links that make up the web have a certain similarity to our own body and mind. And in my last post on my own blog that the connections throughout the internet are really similar to the connections in our own brains.

But it’s not just in our brains, our bodies are created and defined by all of the relationships among all of the different parts- hormonal, structural, electrical, sub-atomic, etc.

This situation works well as long as the connections have meaning and the functions that result are helpful to the overall body.

A cancer grows when it starts manipulating the body’s resources for its own gain. Blood vessel growth and sugar intake are increased solely for the good of cancer.

Isn’t that kind of similar to this 2000 bloggers thing? And, I suppose, the other kinds of linkbaiting and buying of links that are referenced in these comments?

But before we get too worried about the health of the blogosphere, I think the response from the blogging community has been instructive.

Cancer arises in your own body every day. Millions of times per day, in fact. Your immune system simply finds it and kills it. End of story, until your overall health is depressed enough to let it grow. Or until a cancer comes along that is particularly aggressive.

It seems to me that the self-regulation of the internet (consider the success of Wikipedia) is working well, and it is another indication that what we are building on internet servers around the world is getting more and more alive by the minute.

I use Alexa’s Traffic Ranking Search too. Interesting to watch how blogging has so quickly changed my ranking. Shows me that one major benefit of blogging is growing traffic to my site. Something that is much more challenging with a static, brochure-style site.

The problem with the 2000 is it has made a mess of seeing who links to you.

From a ranking standpoint, a traffic standpoint, Alexa is much better. I like to see who comes thru regularly, so I use MyBlogLog for that.

Chris

As I said above, I don’t know Tino’s motivation. I’d like to think it was a fun experiment too. But maybe he was looking to create a ton of buzz around his blog – which he’s done. The interesting this is that he has the most to gain from 2000 Bloggers.

I absolutely agree that it’s your content that keeps readers returning. Without a doubt.

Dave

That’s my point exactly. The bloated stats gave me a false sense of success.

2,000 Bloggers

Read Doug’s post. He makes another interesting point.

That’s exactly what I’ve been doing – and will continue to do. I learned long ago that if you want results, you simply have to work for them.

Margaret

Nice insight. Thanks for sharing. I’m sure you’re right. And I assume they’ll be more ‘ingenious projects’ coming…

Neither seeking or caring to improve my blog ranks. As for ranking, what goes up must come down and technically 2000 Bloggers is a temporary shout – not an ongoing one unlike other memes. (Thursday Thirteen for Example)

In time the ranking will fade and make room for the next ingenious project.