Well, ain’t it a small world, spiritually speaking.
Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved.
I guess I’m the only one that remains unaffiliated.
– Ulysses Everett McGill

Darren Rowse has a post today explaining why a blogger should consider joining a blog network.

I have written before on blog networks, and have actually had a couple of inquiries from networks wondering if I was interested in joining one. Because I was flattered by the interest, I thought about it some.

I asked myself what a blog network could do for Newsome.Org and, more importantly, what Newsome.Org could do for it. Until you join a group, human nature dictates that the issue is all about getting in. Insiders know that once you’re in, many other issues arise around staying in and keeping everyone happy.

It’s not an easy decision.

Let’s take a look at Darren’s reasons in favor of networks and see how they might apply to a reasonably popular independent blog.

1) Relationships

This is the great double-edged sword of the network question. Certainly, you would build and cement relationships with those in your network, but you might also chill your relationships with those in other or no networks.

I ultimately concluded that this was a wash. Partly positive and partly negative to the decision.

2) Traffic

This is the primary reason I considered pursuing a network affiliation. We have talked it to death, but for most bloggers, traffic is one of the goals. Traffic equals readers equals comments equals conversations, etc.

Definitely positive to the decision.

3) Expertise

Darren says, correctly, that a network relationship can give you the benefit of the other members’ expertise in blog building, etc. I didn’t think about it in exactly that way- for me it was more about finding some cool, smart people to travel through the blogosphere with. Sort of an extension of my wagon train concept.

Mildly positive to the decision.

4) Administration

I definitely thought about this, and it was negative to the decision. I have too much administration in my life already and I’m reasonably tech-proficient. The last thing I want is to have to remake my page in the image of some network look and feel. Granted, I’m sure some networks are more flexible than others in this regard, but it is something I want to mostly avoid.

5) Revenue

This is the biggest issue in the network question. I am not blogging to make money. I may one day have some text ads to help pay the server costs, etc. and if anyone wants to throw some money at me, I’ll probably take it. But it is absolutely not the reason I write. Plus, of course, the network takes a cut of that revenue, which raises all sorts of other complicated issues. If I ever join a network, it probably won’t be because of the revenue factor. In fact, it would likely be in spite of it.

Revenue complications are a big negative to the decision.

6) Search Engine Optimization

If you get permanent links from other network blogs, you may move up the search result pages. I find SEO for SEO sake a little creepy. Traffic is good and I want it, but I’d rather let it come naturally. SEO is not something I thought about, and it would not be a factor should I ever join a network.

Neither positive nor negative to the decision.

7) Prestige

I thought about this more than I would have expected to. I am, in theory, completely unconcerned with prestige, yet there it was- leading me to think long and hard about a possible network affiliation.

I’m not proud about it, but the prestige factor was a mildly positive to the decision.

8) Learning

Darren mentions that you can learn a lot, about writing and blogging, by being part of a network. I suspect you can, but you can probably learn just as much from reading all sorts of blogs, both network and non-network.

Neither positive nor negative to the decision.

At the end of the day, I didn’t pursue any network opportunities. That’s not to say I never will, but for the time being it doesn’t seem to make sense to join a network.

Darren promises a future article on why not to join a blog network. I’ll take a similar look at that post when its published.

I come from a people and place where farming has been part job and part culture for as long as I can remember. Yes, I sold out and moved to the big city, and I am not without a little guilt about that. Particularly since my personal philosophy is more grounded in driving a combine than pushing paper around.

To keep some small grip on my past and my sanity, I read a few farming publications, Farmgate being one of them.

As we have talked about seeding a blog with good content, nurturing the conversations that build on such content, growing an internet presence and harvesting the bounty thereof, I have thought many times that blogging is not unlike farming in the planning and execution stages.

Yesterday, Farmgate post an article entitled Are You Planting for Today, or for the Future?

It makes many good points that apply to blog building just as much as farming. Here are some quotes followed by a discussion of how these concepts might apply to blog building:

If you make the change to more soybean acres, are you doing it ““because that is the thing to do?” ” Are you doing it because energy and production costs have risen for corn? And if you are making the change, are you trying to escape costs, and let revenue fall where it may? Are you looking at the end of the marketing year, as well as the start of the production season?

When we decide what topics we want to cover and how we want to cover them, we have to look beyond the here and now. We have to think about how things will look, and sell, later. Once we’ve written hundreds of posts, what will our blog look like. Will there by discernible theme? Will there be sufficient topic rotation to keep the ideas fresh and useful? Will there be a market for what we write? How many other bloggers are out there growing the very same thing? Can they produce the same crops more easily? Are they closer to the relevant markets, such that their transportation costs are less?

I am a visual person. From back in my sports days to my music days to my lawyering days and my writing days, I like to imagine the outcome of my actions. It’s a cliche I suppose, but it comes naturally to me and I do it all the time. I visualize my blog as rotating fields in the ground that is my part of the blogosphere, with a healthy crop of articles, ideas, conversation and humor. Too much of one makes the ground less fertile. Sometimes when nothing grows in one of the fields I let it lie empty for a while.

The educated folks at several universities in the Cornbelt want you to consider what will likely be complexion of the market, before you make any final and unalterable decisions by putting seed in the ground.

What sounds good in theory may not work all that well when put into practice. Things like breaking news topics, blogospats that disrupt the conversation flow, conferences that demand the attention of attendees and a horde of other weather-like factors affect how well your crops grow. You can’t always predict these things, but you have to plan for them by taking the long view. If you write a good post and it gets lost in the mix because of a big story, it will get discovered later. And even if it doesn’t, you’ve got other crops in other fields.

While planting decisions remain with the producer, those decisions should be made with the help of knowing the potential marketing outcome of the decision, and not just information based on production costs.

As I said in my 10/90 post, how easy or hard something is to write is not an accurate predictor of what will get noticed in the blogosphere. To get sold there needs to be a market. So what if I wrote one lengthy post about mobile technology, others have entire blogs full of more knowledgable and better written posts. You have to take the long view.

You lose some crops and sometimes you have bad spells (like this past weekend, when the blogosphere was a slow as freeze dried molasses), but over time good planning, good planting and good crop management will lead to good production.

It’s as true in the blogosphere as it is on the farm.

Seth Godin, obviously having read and taken to heart some of the words of old what’s his name, steps forward with his take on the noisy blogosphere.

As those rocky places where many of our words could find no purchase (I can cut loose with my own brand of literary reference every once in a while) fall away before the flattening forces of the citizen media movement (alliteration and pretense- put me in coach, I’m ready), the once ordered nature of the blogosphere becomes the cacophony of the masses (I’m in the zone; is it me writing these words or Nick Carr?).

The result is too many voices competing for too few ears. A situation Seth compares to the tragedy of the commons. The real tragedy for common folks, of course, is that none of us have any idea what that is. So I took one for the team and looked it up for us.

It’s a parable, sort of like the ones Jesus and Andy Griffith used to tell.

Between those two great parable tellers came some guy named William Forster Lloyd (he has three names so you know he was smart; four names means you’re both smart and rich). He told a story that was later told by Garrett Hardin in Science magazine.

The parable uses a lot of fancy words to say that if a lot of people compete for the use of a shared resource (be it a grazing pasture, a fishing pond or the blogosphere), the end result is overuse, which is bad for everyone. It’s the smart guys’ version of the prisoner’s dilemma.

The end result for the blogosphere, according to Seth, is that to save it we have to use it differently. The autonomous collective (the literary references keep on coming) different- through restraint, selectivity, cogency and brevity (which is what Seth manifestly advocates). Or the feudal different- with the lords within the castle and the fiefs without (which he doesn’t mention directly, but it’s the blogosphere’s zoning and paper equivalent).

Asking the citizenry of the blogosphere (far too many of whom are chasing the almighty dollar) to be reasoned in their use of the shared blogosphere is like asking people not to litter.

Those of us who are willing not to litter are already not littering. Others will turn a deaf ear to the plea, even while remorsefully tossing a candy wrapper out the window.

So if we know the autonomous collective approach is doomed to failure, what is left?

That is the question.

Update: Scott Karp says the answer is more metadata and better filters.