I have an eye for how things can be gamed. A few months ago, I pointed out a supposed flaw of blogdex that allows porn peddlers to get high on the blogdex ranking.
It probably isn't the best trait to brag about. But, like Donald Trump, I am a sucker for self-promotion and pointing these things out have been a boon for a little free press. So, I can't resist.
BoingBoing has added the technorati link cosmos to each of their posts. I added this tool to the eurekster blog a few weeks back, when it first came out. The technorati service allows you to put a link after every post that shows the weblogs that have linked to that post. It is a cool service, but like everything else that enables conversations across blogs (ie trackbacks, comments, referrer links), it is easy to game.
How? BoingBoing gets lots of visitors. As indicated recently, by the conversation this post started, the visitors are a vocal bunch. Since boingboing can't afford to host a forum or a comments tool, they are relegated to using this technorati tool.
However, I think this is open to being exploited by timely weblogging. By being the first to comment on a new boingboing post, the possibility of random browsers clicking on it is very high. So, I don't plan to sit there and hit refresh every 10 minutes at boingboing and then be the first to blog about it, but someone could. Here is my test to see how this works. Link to this post if you are reading it as a result of going from boingboing to technorati to here.
Boing Boing for today:
BoingBoing tribe on tribe.net hits 700 members
Photoscraping LiveJournal
Cosplay community site "Cure"
LiveJournal image
zeitgeist
CD and DVD cover-art archive
Sniper rifle shoots RFID chips into people?
Jon Stewart and Al Franken on Air America
As far as this technorati service being a replacement for a forum or comments, it doesn't quite cut the mustard. Comments and forums allow people to have one conversation, like a tap root burrowing into the ground. This technorati feature gives a view of conversations going in several different directions...like the rest of the roots that are looking for water and anchoring the soil of a tree. Comments enable the conversation to occurr on a weblog. I then associate that weblog as a good place to have a conversation with people and they re-inforce the brand value of the weblog. The technorati link cosmos is a welcome new tool, but not a replacement for comments or trackback from a site visitor or site owner/marketer perspective.
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