I’m breaking my rule about not ‘blogging on blogs’ again but Iain Murray asks a good question today:
Odd, isn’t it, that the Leftist American blogs don’t link to Leftist British blogs in the internationalist way that the right and libertarians do… Any ideas why? (I’d especially like to hear from comrades on the British left on this one).
Funny, I was wondering about this one just last night. It is true that my posts rarely get linked to by US blogs and I suspect the main reason is simply that I don’t venture into US domestic debates very often.
But that shouldn’t really count should it? Adding people to your blog list is basically, as Iain suggests, an act of support or solidarity. Samizdata, England’s Sword and other right/libertarian sites, pop up frequently on corresponding US blogs despite having UK-biased content.
Yet the left US blogs I have had some contact with such as Matt Welch, Jeff Jarvis, Matthew Yglesias have never bothered given me a spot on their blogrolls (not that I have ever asked mind).
In contrast when I set this blog up, UK conservatives such as Iain, Peter Cuthbertson and Pete Briffa happily gave me a plug and plenty of advise and encouragement. So is nationality more important than ideology when it comes to giving people a bit of a hand with their sites?
I suspect it is. Basically I think we just don’t register with the American sites. The big hitting US blogs spout on and on about the power and global potential of the medium yet they have shown next to no interest in giving a helping hand to the small Britblog scene – and I suppose why should they?
Sadly the result is that when UK media write about political weblogs they still refer to Instapundit and co rather than pay any attention to their own British sites – but that is surely a challenge to us to get ourselves better known isn’t it?
I don’t write for the traffic (if I did I would post on gun control and anti-Americanism every day) but of course it is encouraging to get people visiting, reading and commenting, wherever they come from.
We have passed 40,000 visits here and while that is nothing compared with some sites, I am proud of the quality of readership that regularly visits. You can read too much into sitetracking data but the stats and the emails I have received from some quite senior figures in the UK media suggest that there is a nice niche audience out there. I have a few plans to try and widen the readership and changes will continue to be made in the future – as always your ideas are particularly welcome.
