Fostering a community seems to be the job of a forum, imo.

Most people move around easily, but we always appreciate those that stick around and comment. It makes it fruitful to blog.

@Aurabolt: Yep, cannot agree more. I cannot deny that I do care about traffic, but it is perhaps an interesting thing that new blogs actively try to find a little space around here. There are still tons of gaps at least in the anime scene.

@Totali: Arr, i try to keep it on the main page, and you do give decent traffic if anything. I consider myself more of a writer than a reader now, since time constraints mean I seldom comment on other blogs. Nevertheless, I try to interact. The biggest traffic from hyperlinks still come from the big blogs though.

I explained to Matthew that it does not depend whether Matthew is active, but the mere existence of a hyperlink. Hence, many blogs probably linked him and did not delete.

@Usajigen: It is probably untrue in the blogsophere that it is getting congested. I am very sure that it is not the case in the anime scene, since there are still a lot of sub genres that are waiting to be explored.

Belonging to a community is an extremely hard thing to quantify in my opinion. It is a feeling and something of a qualitative researcher. As you can tell, I am not too well versed in the arts of qualitative work. And you are in the blogroll now ^_^ TIME FOR HAMSTER SOUP!

@Crisu: I do not use graphs often, so I apologize for bad presentation. That can be a good reason as well, as the top bloggers already have their own brand of writing that works for readers.

I actually do doubt that quality will prevail. As much as there is quality writing, it is perhaps already existent in the old blogs that we have been visiting. New blogs are facing a problem right now in which they often have to get the bigger blogs to link to them in order to start. I always try to help, despite my extreme laziness. I also started by whoring and advertising my blog for it to be where it is right now.

@Kabitzin: Yep, you hit the nail there, Kabitzin. To be honest, when the blog turns a tad old, you start to lose your focus on the new blogs that are coming out. If only old blogs (and popular ones) give you traffic, is there even any incentive to link to them at all unless requested.

I wonder as well, but I am quite sure that link structure tends to stick. There is seldom any dramatic increase or reduction.

@Monte: Thanks! I actually use a very simple mean and graph display in order to help everyone understand. I am glad that you commented because this power law distribution is not only happening in the anime realm, but also in various other genres of writing such as politics. I am glad that you learn something and do comment more if you find anything interesting.

@Michael: As I explained somewhat, there are different gauges of popularity. I can use total pageviews, Google page rank, amount of hyperlinks and various other methods. However, since this little article is orientated toward the option of the blogger, hyperlinks are perhaps the best gauge of popularity. Creating a hyperlink to another blog is an active choice rather than a passive one, which means it requires an action in order for it to be carried out.

In that case, it is somewhat like a referral of a positive review (or bad sometimes). Ya, the writer has sadly closed down the blog when i last checked, even though they moved to ikimashou, if I am not mistaken. I do think that fighting with the big boys really mean that you have something new that everyone doesn’t, and in fact attracts enough attention.

It’s always that unique behavior that will bring you the readers, along with aggressive advertising and a belonging to the community. A man cannot be an island and expect to have traffic.

The anime blogosphere is congested right now, and I would agree, it is difficult to start a new blog. Even as an established blog (I think more than a year establishes you somewhat in the blog sphere), it’s still hard for me to ‘compete’ with the big boys like RC and maybe your blog as well. What more for the budding bloggers out there?

Weren’t you the one who posted about Butterfly Dreams as a fledgling yet promising blog? The writer has now closed his blog: he posted about an indefinite hiatus. I’m glad I get my comments, and a significant readership, but it will be a path that would be really hard for the newer bloggers out there.

I’m sorry if I get carried away from the main topic, but all your applied methologies and vocabulary capture my whole attention. As retarded that this may sound, regarding which link feed the other one; you people manage to create something that works like a transformation system, a very precise coordination and organization of a KMD.

Consider that you leaders and great bloggers manage to tailor a source of knowledge management to many individuals, we learn from this, no matter if is a cause_effect discussion.

The simple fact that you raise a discussion about a topic, regarding the outcome, is something to admire. That my friends, is having a reason for a passion, a mere goal to accomplish that will satisfy your intelligent capabilities.

Thank you people ! I learn something new every day !
Im sorry for the blog, I know that this comment dosent belong in here.

This clearly does not bode well for any new blogger who is keen to come into blogging. The result clearly shows that there is perhaps a neat sub minority that links to each other, but new entrants to the scenes will have issues trying to keep up with whatever the top few bloggers have to say.

You mention that people tend to link good and popular sites, and that many bloggers hope that linking a site will result in a reciprocal link. Some commenters believe that blogrolls are useless. I would disagree, but just as a small number of blogs get a majority of the inlinks, that small number usually give the greatest number of referrals. In other words, getting a reciprocal link from a popular site is more valuable than getting a reciprocal link from another starting blogger. This may be a part of why there is little incentive for established bloggers to find new blogs to link to.

Also interesting is the never-shrinking blogroll. In many cases, once you’re in you’re in. Would a snapshot of a more recent season show the same bloggers, even if some of those bloggers produced very few anime-related posts in either period of time?

The top blogs stay at the top because of their fresh content, posting frequency, and willingness to reply to commenters. I enjoy reading Kurogane for these three reasons. If lesser blogs could write like he can, then I believe they will eventually get the same attention.

Maybe I don’t see the problem too well since I use the Antenna (huge RSS feed) instead of blogrolls (link list). Instead of giving me blog names, the Antenna gives me entry titles and first paragraphs. So I’m looking for content relevant to my interests or unique taglines to pique my curiosity. Bloggers’ writing skills are the key selling point here.

I don’t have a problem with the way things are right now, with the few conglomerate big blogs and the many entrepreneur small blogs. I don’t think good talent is going unnoticed and crappy writing is getting undeserved glory. Kind of like capital business, it may be a tougher road for some than others to get noticed and favorited, but all the effort spent in achieving that becomes training to become a better writer and better advertiser anyway, no?

…If only there was an interface like YouTube or Facebook, where links to related blogs and tags are just automatically generated and prominently displayed. AB.net bloggers have to do it manually, and it often requires research. If I were to write an entry about Clannad episode 12, I could help the community effort if I linked to the other ten blogs writing about Clannad. But I’d have to find them all, and there’s no time.

Rather, the AB.net antenna has a whole list of series tags, so if there were a widget that accessed that database; it could be plugged into bloggers’ posts and become useful.

It’s not only recently that I felt I belong to the community… and I think I owe much of that to joining the AB channel XD I’m hoping that joining the ABC will make me one step even closer to the community~ (and, get my lazy self to read more blogs) =3

P.S. after what Impz has done (or intended to do) to our hamster chef, we’re still not in his blogroll. tsk3x =P

btw if Author is reading this, Matthew’s is probably up there because he had it so that you could simply add your blog to his blogroll on site at one point. lol

(1) It’s a waste of sidebar space.

(2) As NovaJinx said, longer blogrolls give you less incentive to click on a link.

In other words, it’s perfectly understandable if new blogs (including mine) don’t get linked back. I don’t want anyone half-heartedly linking me.

Either way, does it matter? Not all of us write to see traffic swarming in.

But yeah, I can see what you’re saying. One of the reasons that I joined the THAT team instead of applying for a new blog was because people tend to stick with the solid and consistent blogs such as Random Curiosity, THAT, or Sea Slugs. However, I don’t think its a flaw on how other blogs are being advertised, I think it’s just the human trait of not wanting to try something new.

@Tj Han: Well, I am not really studying the individual blogs since it will be hard to quantify and a more qualitative approach will be more feasible. I believe that it is perhaps my more active approach toward blogs that account for more blog links. However, it does not make that much of a difference in the overall scheme of things.

I cannot post the results, but the traffic data of the blogs will be closely linked to this as well.

@Reverse Vampire: lol, it is always having a bit of popularity. Not much, but decent. I do wish that I have some medicine to grab those lurkers out for a comment and discussion ^_^

@Edwon: arr, ok. I usually use tables rather than graphs in my report writing. Png also takes way more space @_@

Impz seems to have studied Ab.net hosted blogs only. But what is interesting is how despite its huge readership, RC doesn’t seem to have that many links around? Is it because of its perceived popularity already, where people don’t feel the need to link to it because everyone knows it? Or is it because Omni doesn’t ever actively ask to be linked unlike Impz, who is pro-active at it?

Regarding blogrolls, I get quite a lot of emails from new bloggers asking to be placed there. It’s an issue because I wouldn’t just want to add any old blog I have never heard of and waste space on my sidebar. Yet I still feel like it’s good to help in terms of publicity. Solution? I set up a “Squire” category lol.