rare pattern thoughts in a blog

Here's something I posted on BlogHer....

I think that, given the incredible activity on BlogHer these past few weeks, the answer is undoubtedly "yes." [Remarks on site stats deleted. -LS]

But I have to wonder about Technorati and their inability (or unwillingness?) to track BlogHer. What prompted me to write this is that, as I was adding BlogHer to my Technorati faves list, I saw that Technorati did not have any up-to-date info on BlogHer.

I manually pinged Technorati but after some 20 minutes now, still no change.

(And this isn't nearly as bad as seeing our business site listed as not having been updated in 186 days! Granted, we don't blog there every day ... it's been a few weeks now ... but the last posts were earlier this month! Anyway....)

Some might ask: Why not say Technorati schmechnorati! and be done with it? Do we all need the A-list mentality, as Jory asks? Is mobilejones right? Does Technorati even matter in this MySpace world?

At this point, I have to laugh at myself, because I noticed all this while participating in Technorati's latest popularity measure -- which is very undemocratic, tends to mainstream traffic, and generally rewards the already-successful. And here I was excitedly playing along! (Aren't I the disruptive little blogger now?)

Still, when the question remains, "Where are all the women bloggers?" -- the best answer is right here, on BlogHer, in the blogs written by these amazing contributing editors, and in the blogrolls. Of course, list obsessions are a big deal for some bloggers -- and was a topic in last year's conference. And so, by the way, was Technorati's apparent blindness to women's blogs in general. Yet, as Charlene Li noted last year, people pay attention to lists. Maybe we shouldn't sneeze at them.

Subverting the mainstream is part of the disruptive nature of the long tail -- and the Cluetrain will win out, in the end. But part of "success" -- which, in this case, we can consider being noticed -- comes from gaming the system, and while we may pooh-pooh such gimmicks and tactics when it comes to our own blogs, it behooves us to do the little things that can add up to a slightly improved collective visibility. (And I know, we want to get the pretty buttons going, too! Soon!)

So here's a link which adds BlogHer to your faves list (if you are registered there):

Maybe if enough people do this, the Technorati boys can't help but notice that there's a living, breathing website here. (Will this post change things, as public pleading did for Alexandra?)

(ps - And no judgments, please, on my other faves. I was just getting started when I saw what it said about BlogHer.)

Updated 1 March 2006, 1:07 PST

About the author

Laura Scott is President of pingVision.