Random Acts of Successful Blogging

If you were by yesterday, you may have noticed the Site Meter has jumped by about 4,000 ticks. Well, there’s a reason for that. I’ve got an avalanche of visitors after Fire Dog Lake posted about this post. So, today I’ve had more than 3,000 visitors which is more than I’ll have in two weeks most weeks. Thank God I upgraded my bandwidth last month or we wouldn’t have a blog right now.

I’ve got to tell you the success of this one post (that I threw together in about 15 minutes) is both surprising and somewhat irritating. I take weeks preparing the Carnival of Christmas, I spend countless hours responding to Russ in the Blogging Epic and this is what generates thousands of hits in a single day.

The one thing that’s been misconstrued is my reason for offering my blog the Screwtape Report as a prize in a contest that ended up full of liberal bloggers. The Sideshow wrote:

Jane Hamsher notes that the prize on offer for the Best Political Blog award which she, Wonkette, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, and Talking Points Memo are in competition for is a book by a right-winger, obviously offered at a time when it was assumed that, as usual, right-wingers would dominate the nominations.

Actually, no. While I was surprised that all the candidate blogs were liberals, I was aware the liberal blogs had a legitimate chance of winning. What I decided is that as a writer, as much as I’d like to get my book reviewed and get some positive publicity, the point was never that. Indeed, if Hugh Hewitt or Michelle Malkin won the Award, I had little chance of my book actually getting reviewed because big bloggers are busy people. The point was getting my book and my name in front of people, thus promoting the book and my blog. A little piece of advice inspired by Guerilla Marketing. At that I’ve succeeded splendidly. 65 hits off the Bloggies Award Site and more than 3000 off a liberal website. In the group is someone I trust who will become a regular reader.

The biggest problem is that liberals being nominated to all the Political bloggies spot means something about where our country or world is headed. First of all, the argument raised from the post that started the avalanche was a little off:

Digby noted that two years ago it was inconceivable that five liberal blogs would have been the finalists.

Well, it wasn’t inconceivable in 2005, it happened. Two years ago, in 2004, three of the five blogs nominated leaned left, 1 leaned right, and the other was neutral. The right-leaning one won the last time a Conservative was allowed in the Award. There’s really no glory in a Liberal winning a Big Blog Award if the judges only chose only chose liberal blogs to compete for the Award.

Too often, liberals think Award Shows (online or offline) measure real political or cultural success. Guns didn’t get outlawed because a movie won an Oscar neither did Cider House Rules bring an end to the abortion debate. Nothing against the blogs that have been nominated, but a Blogging Award does not settle any political issues, it doesn’t guarantee victory for anyone in the future. (Some people are so excited, they think it means Bush will get impeached.) No, the Country’s not moving left because someone wins a blog award.

The Internet also has to be understood as a resource not a measuring stick. If online polls and their ilk meant anything I’d have had experience in the Alan Keyes White House (as Keyes dominated online polls, particularly in 1996).