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An attempt at Kent’s “second opinion”
My blogging friend Kent Newsome had a great idea recently (I’m sure it’s just the latest of many). After all the talk about gatekeepers and how A-listers such as Doc Searls could do more by linking to unknown bloggers, Kent decided to start a feature he called “second opinion,” in which he singled out and linked to a lesser-known blogger with a good post on a particular topic. Doc has called this “affirmative traction.” (Nice one, Doc).
I think this is a fantastic idea. For all the whining from B-listers and C-listers and Z-listers about how no one links to poor old them, very few go out of their way to link to bloggers who are even lesser known than they are. I know this is kind of cheating, but as my first attempt at doing this, I’m actually going to pick someone I found through Kent’s blog - except that he didn’t link to this person as an example of a second opinion, he linked to them because they agreed with his suggestion and mentioned it on their blog. So who is it? It’s Dave Wallace of Australia, who writes two good blogs - one called Lifekludger, and a personal one called Blob.
I went to Dave’s blog to check out what he said about Kent’s idea, but then I read this post, which was about equality on the blogosphere, and how there plenty of tools for grouping the same dozen or so blogs together around topics, but there aren’t enough that allow you to find the lesser-known voices - kind of like Kent is trying to do. I thought Dave put it quite well. While looking around his blog (because I’m a nosy journalist), I discovered that Dave also writes Lifekludger, which is about the tools he uses to make it easier to do things, since he has been a C4 quadraplegic for the last 25 years or so.
Dave’s blogs aren’t exactly the bottom of the Z-list - Lifekludger is number 342,900 in the Technorati rankings with 30 links from 8 sites, and Blob is number 255,753 with 30 links from 11 sites. But I still think he could use a boost, and I’m happy to do my part to help him get more readers.
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Giday Mat. Thanks for the attention. Lifekludger is a project of mine whose vision is to Enrich lives by connecting (networks of) people whoâ€? *MAKE things for PLAY* & “NEED things for LIFE”. That’s gonna need some attention. I know firsthand the benefits of technology for people with a disability yet also know the barriers that exist to access those benefits. Part of that is awareness on both sides of the equation. At the moment Lifekludger activities are around bringing focus to the possibilities that exist - sometimes in everyday devices whose application beyond the stated purpose or target group goes unnoticed.
Keep the faith!
Dave
Thanks for the comment, Dave. And good luck with the blog.
Sorry Mat, forgot a link to the vision. Not sure you would have got that far in your digging. BTW: In this continuous partial attention age I appreciate your taking the time to dig a bit deeper- even if it is due to being “a nosy journalist” :-)
Whats theSecond opinion Wagon ?? Read more on Matts blog However Link Juice is not enough. I think creating the Community of knowledge is more effective.
[...] An attempt at Kent’s “second opinion” [...]
Does a Second Opinion = Affermative Traction
After previous dialogues around the issues of gatekeepers, blog traffic, A-list, Z-list, M-list, Down-linkers and whatever else you want to term it, then Kent Newsome’s dreaming up the idea called “second opinion“, Mathew Ingram pick…
Mathew Ingram’s second opinion posts and concludes that he got a little subscriber boost, but that the better by-product of such links is the initial connection that might lead someone to return to a blog because of the content.
Great job guys…
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