The ever-jubilant Julie Zickefoose recently shared some really honest thoughts about the Nature Blog Network and blogging in general. Her post and the MANY comments that follow are well worth reading, even if you don’t have a blog (yet). Plus, she calls me estimable, though in her defense we haven’t met offline yet!
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.
It was an interesting post. I must confess my own slide down the charts as stung a little (but also incentivised me to give E,W&W the renewed attention I’ve been promising it for sometime). I didn’t even realise there were reviews on NBN until I read that post of JZ’s – how do we access/find them?
Like Tai, I plummeted too and felt the sting. It’s very interesting to see the different “genres” of nature blogs out there. There are the daily journal types that tell about the author’s lives (like Julie and even Birdchick) and then there are the trip report/bird news/photo blogs which I probably fall into 95% of the time. The journal-type blogs seem to draw more loyal readers.
Mike, I think you’ve been estimable a few times. 🙂
The top six on NBN (and several others in the top 10) are part of a highly-trafficked network, and benefit from the mutual relationship. It’s impressive that a single-author blog like Julie’s can compete with that.
I actually don’t buy that those Sciblings doing well on NBN are benefitting that much from sciblogs – blogs like tetzoo had big followings before joining and others like DSN are well away from the core of scienceblogs coverage. I’m amazed and delighted a blog like DSN is so well followed.
I know that a lot of the SB blogs had large followings before they joined the network, and SB does pick very good writers. But there is some bounce. There are obvious benefits, like interlinking and common portals. And then there are less obvious benefits, like extra referrals from Google from having so much content on one domain.
Oh absolutely – you’re totally right John. My (badly expressed) point was just that those doing well are all well written blogs that seem to have their own distinct followings too if you see what I mean.
Julie’s (and Mike/Corey/Charlie’s) achievements are as you say equally if not more impressive.
Tai, I appreciate your mention of our achievements. John doesn’t seem to be too impressed by the success of the 10,000 Birds triumvirate!
Patrick, you’re too kind.
I didn’t mean to imply that, Mike.
John, I was busting your chops!