Sometime’s you catch the zeitgeist (that’s German for guy-with-zits), sometime’s you deliberately rip off an idea, and sometimes an idea’s so great everyone has it simultaneously. As a charitable individual (you should see this chick I slept with back in ’98), I’ll go on record as saying that I find a link between my repeated public statements regarding launching a sex-blog network, my announcement that I’ll be working with the team behind 9rules.com, and this announcement regarding a ‘competing’ network by a guy who’s just acrimoniously left the 9rules fold, completely impossible to fathom.

In case you haven’t got an email from them yet – here it is.

…

Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 2:58 AM

Subject:sexblogsinc.com is hiring

You’ve been invited!

So in the Late Spring of 2005 we will be launching SexBlogsInc., yes a massive sex blog network like none other With people who have been in the adult eterntainment industry, design industry and mass marketing industries. I’m sure this will be a huge success because of the energy and dynamics of the people involved. 

Terms

We pay our bloggers 100% of the first $250 in monthly ad revenue from their blog(s) – then 50% of any additional ad revenue. We have a bonus structure for additional ad revenue that comes into your blog. You get full editorial control over your blog, with only a few guidelines. And you get to own all the content.

Ok this is where you say: I’d like to blog for you!

Great. Send us a note at liberalcowboy@….com with your ideas for a niche topic within the sex industry. We are offering $100 Hiring Bonuses for people hired by February 15th, who post atlest 5 posts a week for 60 days.

The spelling mistakes in the above excerpt are all theirs (and the rest are all mine).

There’s nothing which confirms a great idea as certainly as being emulated so, whoever they’re emulating should be flattered their idea’s a good one.

The offer they’re making sounds pretty good – albeit very traditional. If you’re seriously considering joining their team – here are the questions I’d be asking:

1. 100% of $250 isn’t a lot of money, so what are they expecting to make overall?
2. If they want blog ideas, does that mean they don’t have ideas of their own? If you submit an idea for a blog but don’t get hired, will they launch an identical blog with another writer?
3. What experience of the adult industry do they have or are they hoping to learn as they go? Who do they know?

Despite not being able to offer a cash incentive, I am pleased to say the response from bloggers wanting to work with me has been flatteringly porky. I think they understand that they’re name and reputation is as much at stake as my own, and only want to be involved in something they believe in. If I was less interested in building smart teams who’ll work for the same goal, and more interested in getting blogs up, so I could say ‘look – it’s a sex blog network’ I might try cash, but I figure $100 wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Bloggers wanting to add their blogs to our new network, the wait is almost over. I’ll soon provide details of how and where to apply (and for those who think it’s solely up to my own discretion – it’s not). We’re going to build community, traffic and revenue, and I’m excited.

As for Sexblogsinc.com – don’t worry about me joining them, I haven’t been invited (to read all my networking rants wisdom, smack the ‘networking‘ tag).

Popularity: 46% [?]

Jason Calacanis has been stirring up debate recently, making some smart statements about the way blogs are ranked. In short he’s taken a swing at Technorati’s top 100 blog list which is currently, the way most people – and the media, decide which blogs are important.

What’s this got to do with the jizz-bizz? Well if a blog’s a website that uses RSS to inform readers of updates, and RSS is becoming a ‘must-use’ technology, sites that rank ‘blogs’ will soon become as important to traffic generation as search engines like Google are now – that’s why.

Technorati ranks sites by counting the number of links in to them. This makes its top 100 list biased towards the sites that have been running longest. Calacanis suggests they move to a more advanced model, taking account of how many links to blogs were placed recently, and wants a way of filtering out ‘old’ links so users can see what’s hot.

He’s also offering anyone $10,000 who implements his suggestions.

I agree with every word he says, but think we’re still all too influences by the success of Google. As Google builds its results on links, it can be hard to remember that things were once done differently, and can be done differently, and maybe better, in future.

Here’s my angle. If you’re trying to gauge popularity, link volume is almost irrelevant because making that your focus skews results in three ways.

• It favors news items. People link to news as a way of connecting to the original source of a story. Opinion, commentary and other non-news items tend to inspire people in ways that make linking less necessary. Any system based on link volume is always going to favor news sources and content aggregators.
• Link popularity favors the ‘first-movers’ over the best sources. Regardless of the quality of its coverage, the ‘first-mover’ on a story will always receive a greater share of links-in than a slower site, and therefore be rated more highly than sources that pick-up on it later.
• Links ignore reader response. Just because a source has been linked to a lot, doesn’t mean readers find it useful. Link popularity doesn’t reflect the opinions of readers who read a story.

So how can blogs/websites be ranked in a way that addresses some of these weaknesses? Here’s what I suggest:

• Reader loyalty. If a blog has a solid core of long-term subscribers, that can be seen as proof that it’s providing a steady stream of worthwhile postings, and it should be given a higher ranking. The length of membership, and the size of that membership could be treated independently, allowing small sources (e.g. Nature magazine) to carry as much weight on certain items as bigger sources who are read less loyally.
• Reader response. If a post’s receiving a lot of comments, it’s evidence of a community of readers who value, and are stimulated by, its opinions. Measuring the volume of comments, relative to the size of the subscription base, would give a way of ascribing more importance to comments from blogs with fewer readers.
• Links over time. As a post matures, the number of places online covering the same subject-matter increases. You could therefore argue that links to a post mean more as time passes, because over time, each person making a link has a greater choice of places to link to. If I link to a post a month after it’s been published, it represents a more considered choice than making a link when the story’s brand new and I have only one place to link to.

I think that a blog/RSS search system using the approach I’ve suggested can provide higher quality results than any that simply counts links. It could also, with modifications, provide an alternative to Google’s, now much copied, approach to rating websites in general.

Perhaps more importantly, especially for the adult industry, Loyalty, response and link-weight-over-time are harder to exploit and manipulate than simple link counting.

Damnit, I forgot to be amusing. More swearing, sex and cynicism to follow.

Popularity: 19% [?]

9Rules, so sexless it’s depressing.

Some of you may be familiar with the 9Rules network. It’s a group of blogs who’ve decided they’re great, and have got together to revel in mutual admiration.

If they have meetings, I bet they’re all like, “No seriously – your blog is amaaaazing,” or “You’re such a clear thinker. Why aren’t the corporations listening to bloggers?” Then they all do each other with tofu dildos.

Actually, 9Rules is pretty smart. They have built a network of blogs where quality’s guaranteed. Members swear some sort of blood-oath to share traffic through the central hub, and then benefit from the attention being ’special’ brings.

They recently took on their second wave of blogs (and when I say Second Wave I don’t mean the Arab terrorist group who tried to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, only to be thwarted by the amazingly tenacious Jack Bauer and his comrades at LA’s Counter Terrorist Unit.)

I read a number of blogs by 9Rules members, and there’s nothing adult (or even vaguely sexy) in there at all. That’s a pity – I’ve been looking for decent sexblogs to link too and there’s no easy way to find them.

So here’s my question – if 9Rules aren’t going to get into porn, do you think there’s any demand for a network of quality, no-filler sexblogs? (I do) A blog you could visit to find the best sexblogs online without wading though organic fertilizer? If you do – who should be in it?

(NB: I’m not referring to blogs like Fleshbot and Eros which find sexy stuff online. I mean a blog that would help you find quality sites like Fleshbot and Eros to start with).

Popularity: 21% [?]