We’ve talked in the past about Metcalfe’s Law, the idea that in a network, every new member of the network not only derives value from the network, but makes the network as a whole more valuable; the classic example cited is the fax machine. Every fax machine sold increases the value of existing fax machines.
Blogging is one of those Metcalfe applications. Consider this: you’ve got a blog with a decent theme, and on that blog, chances are you have a blogroll or list of friends, sites, and links. (and if you don’t, you might want to consider it) On here, the blogroll is on the right-most navigation bar. The navigation of your blog probably also contains links to other things you care about, such as causes, friends, and even your own stuff on other sites.
Here’s the neat part. Every time I write a blog post, WordPress creates a new page, with a new URL. On that new page, there are a whole pile of links to other pages on this site and on the blog roll. Every blog post makes preceding blog posts more valuable, and as a bonus, every blog post creates an entirely new page with outbound links to everyone in my blogroll. They all benefit every time I blog. I benefit every time I blog. Blogging is self-reinforcing, and that is one of the features that makes it such a powerful tool.
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