brentashley

Chris Ashley (no relation – perhaps we’re ‘blog brothers’) muses on the fleeting fame that washes over one when their blog is linked to by someone higher in the blog popularity tree, creating a temporary surge in their viewer base. Doc calls it blogrolling, a clever term directly derived from logrolling (political back-scratching).

It always settles back, but a little higher than the previous norm. I’ve seen this slingshot effect happen myself, when Dave linked to me when I was but a blogophyte. I’ve got many still-consistent visitors who initially came to me during that particular bulge in my logs.

This effect begets a sort of journeyman/apprentice mentoring scheme into which I’ve found myself naturally falling. Not only do I like getting linked to (although, as Tim pointed out last month, some humility and perspective is in order), I also derive a certain satisfaction from linking to others and helping to shine a light under their bushel. I’m looking forward to following Cam, for instance, who has just recently caught the bug.