Tuesday, February 01, 2005
 some of you might not remember the rules of commenting on the busblog.
i wrote a post about it, but the general idea, is a) tell me im right b) tell me im amazing c) tell me how much you love the blog.
disagreements should be kept to yourselves, especially when discussing the most sensitive issue that you could ever talk with me about: the failures of the chicago cubs and the fact that they will probably never win a world series as long as im alive.
for the meantime lets just agree to disagree.
those of you who think that it's smart for the cubs to pay the orioles $10+ million to take a superstar hall of famer who hit 35 homers on an off-year, and get nothing back in return other than a guy with a broken foot and two minor leaguers - i wont call you any names.
but id like to, cuz youre part of the problem.
im thinking about boycotting the cubs over this move.
hmmmm.
and now for a nicer topic, the success of this blog. which is all due to you.
last month the busblog got more hits than any other month in its history. in fact, it more than doubled the hits that it got the year before. and the year before we werent doing so shabby at a thousand hits a day. last month we averaged over two thousand hits a day.
whats amazing about the success of this blog over the last year is there was no instalanche, there was no crazy spike, there was no ridiculous stunt. what there was was a slow, steady increase month after month with only a minor correction over the summer.
(which obviously means we need a summer swimsuit special each friday this summer)
last night i was interviewed by a lovely young lady who asked me about blog popularity. what the busblog's success can attest to is that the best way to grow is not to suck up to one or two a-list bloggers and pander to them feeding them link-worthy posts for them to point to, but instead to build relationships with a wide network of truly like-minded blogs who will naturally link to you (and vice versa.
the problem is, if you rely on one or two big-named bloggers, if you fall out of favor with that person, then your hits drop off rapidly. but whats worse is, if you were indeed just echoing your sponsor, then you havent established yourself as anything more than a parrot and therefore if your sponsor begins to link you again, his readers will be less likely to click on you, as you are an obvious suck-up kissass and have nothing new to give to the discussion.
 if however, you have been keeping it real all along, and every time that someone comes to your page they are rewarded, you will establish your own audience who will be more likely to remain loyal. once you have a base to build from, the sky's the limit.
or you can do what i do, which is talk a shit-ton of smack, burn bridges, and put half-naked pictures of models on the page and watch the hits soar.
i keed.
if theres one thing that i can say has aided to the success of this blog this year it's one post. one ridiculous post that i made while on a 15-minute break, how to blog.
it has been linked all over the world, it led to a book, it got me on tv, it got me nominated for a bloggie award, and it got people to read a few other posts on this blog which got a few people to bookmark me.
the other big success was due to mr wil wheaton telling his readers that despite the fact that i was being a douche and hating on him for being more popular than me (boo-hoo) he recommended that people come to this blog. so thanks wil, youre quite a man.
its sunny today in hollywood. summer has returned. it's seventy degrees.
im wearing my long sleeve how to blog shirt. the only busblog tshirt i recommend. the others looks sorta crappy.
while we're at it, im having a sale on my autographed books. email me if you want to pay about $25 for one, shipping included.
gregarious recluse + frozen toothpaste + low culture
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