City of Legends

If you pay much attention to this site or the Amomancer blog, you may notice something went away. Well, two things.

Just moments ago I took BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog out of the layouts of both blogs.

Why? Well, for me, these were never to be social networking sites, designed to see how many people I could get to do quid pro quo hits to pump up the illusion of my readership. I saw a few people come by every day to either site from those sources. But most of those were either curious onlookers who weren’t likely to stay, or people looking to create a sense of reciprocity so I’d go visit their site about how to turn catfish whiskers into nuclear energy and become a millionaire by 30. Oops! Late!

I gave them their chance, but they weren’t my thing. I’m not the kind to seek reciprocity as an illusion for readership. Ask some editors I have worked with. After they are through cringing at the mention of my name and have a few drinks, they’ll tell you, I am a prick when it comes to my readership and my audience. I have been known to yell at audiences I thought were patronizing me. I don’t like being played out of courtesy. Let’s avoid the next logic swerve, shall we?

The notion that a get-rich-quick artist operating out of Samoa hits my site a few times a day, staying for an average time of 1.5 seconds seems a bit more like hit racking and less like anything of any real integrity. Just my attitude. I don’t condemn it, just not for me.

EntreCard will be next. I get a fair number of visitors from that service, but the vast majority are quid pro quo bloggers looking for traffic. I don’t need to win a game of pickup sticks to feel good about myself. Sure, a few have stuck around and I have made a few friends. But from the beginning, I never meant this site to become blogosphere-centric. So I am throwing out the irrelevancies to my vision, speeding up load time, reducing screen freezes and giving me three less headaches to worry about in terms of maintaining social networks.

I got enough on my plate and seem to be accelerating going into the second half of 2008. Who knew?

So, farewell BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. I wish you and your devotees the best.