diamond geezer is four years old today. Who'd have thought? When I started I had no intention of writing quite so much for quite so long, but I'm still here nearly 1500 days later. And one of the main reasons I'm still here is that you're here too. Lovely though it is to write stuff and stick it on the internet, it's even better to know that somebody's actually reading it. Which makes me glad I started four years ago, because it's 200 times more difficult to get noticed today...
Approximate size of the blogosphere
September 2002: ¼ million blogs September 2003: 1 million blogs September 2004: 4 million blogs September 2005: 16 million blogs September 2006: 54 million blogs
When you start blogging, you start out as an insignificant fish in a large pond. If you're lucky, and have a bit of colour about you, you might just get yourself noticed. But with the total number of blogs roughly quadrupling every year, your chance of being spotted decreases with every passing month. Which is a shame, because there are now far more fine blogs than there ever used to be, but nobody has the time to read them all. The blogosphere fishpond is overstocked, and it can only get more crowded.
Four years ago all the important fish used to know all the other important fish. But no longer. The fishpond hasn't just enlarged, it's also fragmented. Look over there, that's all the political blogs flapping about in the Westminster shallows. A school of foodie blogs are nibbling at flakes on the surface, and those bubbles over there are being expelled by a shoal of sex-obsessed blogs ejaculating into deeper waters. It helps to join a themed community for collective support, or else to have your own unique habitat where you have no competition. If you're just an ordinary fish writing about your ordinary life, expect to be overlooked.
And blogging has changed too. Four years ago far more blogs used to be proper "web logs", trawling the pond for websites of interest. If you could write something worth linking to, you got noticed. Nowadays (with the possible exception of political bloggers) most people are much more interested in writing their own content than in linking to others. And when they do link it's almost always to the big fish, not to the sprats and whitebait which never get the opportunity to flourish and grow.
I'm pleased I had the foresight to start blogging when I did, back when the pond was considerably smaller. But if you're thinking of starting today, don't lose hope. If you're good, and if you keep swimming, then the rest of us will try to notice you and welcome you to the community. Just don't leave it for another four years, because it'll be 200 times more difficult by then.
The last ten blogs I bookmarked:•••••••••• (hi, and welcome)
4 of diamonds
