HOPING TO HOP

URBAN DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF 'BLOG HOPPING':

"Blog hopping IS NOT surfing the net and reading some blogs here and there at random. Blog hopping is when you find a few blogs that you think are really cool, written by people you can really relate to and you visit them regularly. These people feel a special bond towards each other and visit and comment on the blogs in their circle daily!"

I still don’t understand how blog hopping is supposed to work. Apparently it generates readership, puts you in touch with new bloggers, enhances the whole experience…am I getting this right, Robin?

Not that I have problems with my current readership. It's kind of strangely satisfying being so underground that few people bother to even read your blog let alone pluck up the courage to respond. Indeed, there's something wildly liberating about being read by just a handful. It makes you feel rather uninhibited and sometimes lonely. But I've never believed that the quantity of responses is a reflection of the quality of a blog.

Still, it is curious to see how readers manage to build strong followings. Is it marketing? Is it something in the blog that moves the masses? Or is it just that average people appeal to more readers than avant-garde intellectuals such as Archive Fire or Molecule Colony?

What do you think?

Meanwhile, I will now attempt to make this blog more interactive by doing the following (as Robin instructed). And if you like the idea, perhaps you can do the same.

(a) COPY THIS (and I guess READ IT as well!) I copy/pasted it from Robin's blog so if it sounds confusing - blame her...

1) If you decide that you want to participate, indicate in the comments that you are "in" by saying so in your own unique way. That lets me know that I need to start thinking about your blog/writing style and come up with at least two of my friends that you are not following to suggest that you start following on tomorrow's blog. In other words, I am saving you some work (by not having to scroll through my blogroll) and matching you up to some like-minded writers. Or at least some writers that I think you will enjoy. If I give you more than two blogs that means I am suggesting someone that I think you will enjoy reading, BUT they very well might not follow you back because they have a LARGE following. It is strictly for your pleasure.

2) As soon as you commit to this matchmaking project by saying that you are "in," your first step is to copy/paste this blog and post it on your blog. This thing only works if you pay it forward. Obviously, my name is the first name you write down on the list you are keeping beside your computer. Each person who comments that they are "in" gets added to your list and the same rules apply as above (they copy/paste this to their blog).

3) Tomorrow there will be a post for everyone who participated in this matchmaking project. Each person will now have a couple of new blogs to check out. Comment me back and let me know how I did on my matchmaking. In other words, do you like this concept or not?

(b) MESSAGE TO SELF - READ THE BLOGS THAT ROBIN TOLD ME TO CHECK OUT…

Liza at Middle Passages

Linda at Bar Mitzvahzilla
Candance at Crazy Texas Mommy

(Actually, after checking these blogs out I feel really inadequate! They are de-li-cious! Your matchmaking skills are brilliant, Robin! I should have gotten you to choose my husband for me, too!)  

(c) HAVING DONE THIS I WILL NOW HOP.

Robin, have I started hopping yet?


PS The series of photographs above, titled "Figure Hopping", are by Eadweard Muybridge, 1887; in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, New York City.