The great thing about google news alerts is that it lets you read mayny of the nasty things people say about you.
Anyway, one thing I really don't understand is people who think about their blogs in terms of success and failure. I didn't start this blog because it was going to make me rich and famous, I started it because I wanted to rant away on the internets about politics, to push back against the conservatarian domination of blogs and the internet generally, and to highlight the infinite media misdeeds. It was a hobby. Something to do for fun and maybe every now and then successfully push back against conservative bullshit. I consider myself to be an extraordinarily fortunate person because it's become more than a hobby, but I certainly never thought of this as some sort of venture to succeed or fail. Success, to me, wasn't about having more readers or any sort of personal glory, but occasionally managing to insert something into the media narrative. In the old days I used to tell reporters and editors, when they'd ask about something they ripped off from me, that it wasn't necessary to credit me as at least back then there was no better way to undermine a story than crediting it to some "anonymous dude on the internet."
Anyway, the "not enough people link to me" complaint about the blogosphere isn't an especially compelling one. I find it extra puzzling when it's paired with complaining about my redoing my blogroll, which I did to make it possible for me to actually start adding new blogs to it.
