ranking and motivation in blogging (extended)

It’s interesting how some people criticize Walt’s methodology for giving the older (as in the age of their blogs) bloggers an advantage. For me this cuts the other way. There was a moment when the egotistical part of me thought, “When I started in 2002, I was in the top 60, because there were only around 60 library-related blogs around at that time. Now I’m not – so what have I been doing in the past three years which has caused me to go backwards?”

Of course, that’s not what I really think (so many great bloggers have started after me, to think such things is the height of arrogance, plus I've had a pretty good year, to want more would be greedy). This whole thing has been helpful to me, because it’s strengthened my main reasons for blogging. I can also look back at various decisions I’ve made with this blog, such as making it less library-centric, and spreading myself thin by keeping a struggling alternative blog as instances where I’ve deliberately chosen the less popular path. Once in a while, I wonder, “What if I had chosen a different path …” as I wonder about many other decisions. Then I realize that I would make the same decisions over again and that things are OK.

[yes, why rank at all? otoh why are some people so uncomfortable with rankings, because ranking is ubiquitous on the web, as in google pagerank and technorati etc etc. I would have been more interested in Walt’s purely subjective 60 favourite blogs, because every objective appearing calculation also contains subjective judgements/assumptions, sometimes they’re just more hidden]