The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

Good on you Champion.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I liked the Open Trackback Alliance for the exposure, I like the Life Liberty and Property Internet Community for the same reason.

That being the case I have reserved myself to One Community and One Trackback Alliance and I will continue with those two.

Sam's OTA to a certain extent for those of use who have been in the Samantha Burn's crowd of blogs from the beginning was just a more formal manner of what we were already doing infomrally, reading each others blogs and linking to each other.

Ironically, a form of 'Open Trackbacks' happens all the time amongst the bigger bloggers, who link frequently to each other expressly BECAUSE they all have a good deal of traffic. Say you are Hugh Hewlett, mentioning Item X. Item X is also discussed on Malkin, Instapundit, and Samantha Burns. Chances are you are "linking at your level".

That said, it's Bear's system, and he figures the declassé bloggers are gaming it. That's his call, far as I'm concerned, and hey, life is not fair. I still believe in consistently good bloggers, with good posts and relationships, succeeding. The standard for this are a few blogs like Dustbury. He never does Carnivals and the like (by the way, do Carnivals still count with Bear? becauae that's a workaround). Yet he manages to get nearly 1,000 hits/day, pretty fair traffic by most standards. Over the long haul, good steady blogging, like steady sensible investments, do pay off.

Or, just write posts about Lapsnorkling. Then promote them shamelessly.

When I heard about the OTA, I asked myself, "When will NZ Bear find out and get pissed?" Yes, it's obviously gaming the system, but as Mr. Big pointed out, it's already a game. The problem is that until now, nobody actually TREATED it like a game.

Is that wrong? NZ Bear must have thought so. I suppose it all stops being fun when we start turning it into a business.

...or hollow...

Nicely said, Samantha. It seems to me, given the discontinuity between the admonition not to take this, or ourselves, too seriously and the decision to stop this new form of shameless self-promotion (which also happens to direct people to new blogs they might like reading but otherwise wouldn't find) before someone actually notices...NZ bear is running many risks...including being named the Thanksgiving Yak of the Week...

I'm gonna keep playing cos I've found some terrific blogs this way and met some great folks.

TTLB is just a game, and it's not the only game in town. Playing is only PART of why I blog though. And playing linkfests is only one of the games I like to play. Carnivals: great way to meet new bloggers.

Another game? I do dearches for blogs on topics that interest me—I found two of my fav blogs by searching for coffee bloggers, fer heaven's sake (Both in my blogroll and both linked to regularly by me, because I LIKE not only their content but I like THEM as people.

Do some of these folks become return visitors to TWC and do others visit my blog cos they know me? Well, sure. But that's only cool if it results in connections being made between people, ideas being cross-fertilized, etc.

One of my best comment contributors--regular reader, sharp guy--is someone I've "known" on an email list for years.

Regular, return readers.

And yeh, I don't give a damn about stupid folks who pop in, make a snide comment and never come back. I don't even care if someone's run off my blog cos their crappy Internet Exploder browser doesn't read CSS properly.

I. Just. Don't. Care.

When and or if it stops being fun, a way to "silence the voices in my head" or reach just one person with an "Aha!" momment, well, then I'll move on to something else.

it's just a blog, for heaven's sake!

I like open trackbacks because it's a good way to find new blogs that you may eventually end up blogrolling. I don't link then for "gaming" the system. I do it for GAINING readers. Too many are gaming though. But I know which open trackbacks bring traffic, and which don't. Generally I won't link the ones that don't.About 30% of my blogroll are sites that I originally started reading by them placing an open trackback at Mudville. I base my strategies upon my own personal habits. I assume that if I place a trackback and then follow 2 more then someone else will do the same. If I'm just gaming, then it's pretty pointless if that's what everyone else is doing too.

Did I make any sense? It's late. I'm rambling.

Well said, Sam. Thanks for getting OTA organized, I'll still be doing it for the foreseeable future. OTB parties help me to see what's going on out there, I have no time to search around otherwise. And indeed, hopefully folks will be more likely to read my stuff and that of my co-writers.

So in that way, they are self-serving... if you want to be cynical about it. But I don't want to be toooo cynical, it's Thanksgiving. ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm all the time taking TTLB off of my site. And putting it back on, and taking it back off. LOL The next time it starts to slow my page loading, off it will come again. The Truth Too Slow as I like to call it then.

Open Trackbacks are good exposure to what other people are writing about and TTLB can see it however they like it. I'm not going anywhere and am glad to be a part of the OTA.

Diane said, "I'm all the time taking TTLB off of my site. And putting it back on, and taking it back off. LOL The next time it starts to slow my page loading, off it will come again. The Truth Too Slow as I like to call it then."

At least I know its not just me. LOL