I have an idea for an experiment, and I’d like your help. A lot of you no doubt know about the Blogdex, an MIT grad student’s excellent attempt to quantify the link relationships among blogs and between blogs and other sites. It’s really a nice service.
One of the most useful functions on the site is its list of the 25 most popular links among all the blogs it tracks. Reading the list is a good way to see what everybody else is talking about. I want to see if a little collective action can shove an uninteresting web page into the top 25.
The plan: a bunch of people add their blogs to the list of sites the Blogdex checks, if they haven’t already. Then, on one day, we all link to one exquisitely boring site, with no indication that it’s anything other than a normal blog link. Then, we watch it climb the list.
At the moment, #25 (a Winona Ryder/shoplifting story) is linked from only 12 blogs. So if we can get 12 people in on the project, we’ll have a good chance of getting on the list. (#15 is linked 23 times; #5 is only 20, which must mean that freshness of the link or some other metric must be taken into account somehow.)
I think it’d be an interesting experiment in watching a meme take hold. Will other people start linking to the site? How much will that site’s stats be affected? Let me know if you’re interested in helping test this out. (And I promise, this power will be used for good, not evil.)
On an unrelated note: I hope all my local readers will be making it out to tonight’s DFWblogs dinner. (I initially typed “making out to tonight’s DFWblogs dinner,” which I suppose is a fine option, too.) Important note: I’ll be bringing the mix CDs for the Mix CD Of The Month project, so if you want to trade, bring yours too.
6 thoughts on “blogdex experiment and dfwblogs dinner”
Comments are closed.
Fun. A meme-phage.
It’s not the first time something like this has been done (I seem to recall a simlar experiment on Usenet a few years ago), but it’s still a fun experiment to do.
Count me in! Anything to relieve the boring monotony at the office….see ya tonight!
OH my god Dougal! I used to work with you. What are you doing on Josh’s site?
Matt! Wow! Haven’t heard from you since…umm… 1997? It’s a small damn net, eh?
*snicker* it’s all warm and fuzzy in here.
i won’t be at the BlogEat, but when i get back, i’d love to so some music swapping. i’m getting all kinds of cool stuff lately.
and a fake meme? two words. melanie griffith.
Count me in on the blogdex experiment.