How the blog trust network works (Red Hot Chili Peppers in Fresno tomorrow)

August 26, 2006 By

The other day someone asked me “why should I trust blogs?” I gave a pretty good answer about how the system self corrects (it’s really important to read my comments, for instance, cause if I am blowing smoke up your behind someone like LayZ will point it out in a couple of minutes, sometimes he’s wrong, but a lot of times he’s right. If he’s right other people will join the pile on).

Anyway, here’s one way I trust what people tell me. If they build a relationship with me, like Drew Meyers did, then I generally trust them unless they prove unreliable some other way. Drew, by the way, has free tickets to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Fresno, CA, tomorrow night. Anyone want to go? He’d like to see a donation to a charity in return for the tickets.

But that’s an aside. Here’s an example of how something that I didn’t know about percolates through the blogosphere and onto my screen. I subscribe to about 100 RSS feeds of bloggers that I trust. Overtime they continue bringing me an interesting stream of stuff. Marc Canter, for instance, started the company that became Macromedia and later was sold to Adobe. He’s an interesting guy and I’ve known him for years. If he tells me something is a “must read” generally he’s right 99% of the time. So, today he pulled that on me.

Now a link stream has my attention, big time. So, I head over to Mark Cuban’s blog. Another guy I trust. Heck, he runs the Dallas Mavericks and is one of the best bloggers around. He links me on to Rahul Sood’s blog.

Now, I’ve never read Rahul before. So, I have no idea about whether this guy is good or not. But Mark Cuban says he’s the president and CTO of VoodooPC, and is also a “buddy and supergeek.” So, I click over to Rahul’s post about his discussions with Michael Dell.

That’s a gesture of major support. And, it tells me that this is something I’d probably be interested in (cause I’m interested in geeky stuff, and that’s what I’ve promised you, my readers too. Geeky stuff is good. Cat photos, even funny ones, are bad).

And that’s the story of how this link got on my blog. It indeed is a great post.

Filed Under: 1
  • http://lagesse.org/ kr8tr

    I read the link to Rahul’s blog on Cuban’s site as well, followed it, read the post (and many others) and added Rahul’s blog to my RSS Reader. But honestly, I found the post Mark Cuban linked to somewhat lacking in anything *profound*. Basically it was “This big wig called me and asked me about the business I was in, then they bought my biggest competitor, and now I am excited about the future”

    “Exited about the future?” – Why – because Dell validated your business model, or because you are afraid they will destroy it?

    I just wish the post would have had more substance to it. It was well written, but it didn’t shatter my little world! :)

  • http://lagesse.org kr8tr

    I read the link to Rahul’s blog on Cuban’s site as well, followed it, read the post (and many others) and added Rahul’s blog to my RSS Reader. But honestly, I found the post Mark Cuban linked to somewhat lacking in anything *profound*. Basically it was “This big wig called me and asked me about the business I was in, then they bought my biggest competitor, and now I am excited about the future”

    “Exited about the future?” – Why – because Dell validated your business model, or because you are afraid they will destroy it?

    I just wish the post would have had more substance to it. It was well written, but it didn’t shatter my little world! :)

  • http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/ John Dodds

    I was going to take issue with your self-correcting point on the basis that sometimes the sheer volume of comments makes reading them all impractical and that on other occassions they read like a battle between your fan club and your haters and bear little relationship to the point at hand. But then I realised I was being hypocritical because a “hail-mary” comment that I left in the midst of a huge number of comments on another blog was read by exactly the right person. It still amazes me and gives me huge faith in blogs.

    http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/2006/08/just-another-remarkable-day-in.html

  • http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/ John Dodds

    I was going to take issue with your self-correcting point on the basis that sometimes the sheer volume of comments makes reading them all impractical and that on other occassions they read like a battle between your fan club and your haters and bear little relationship to the point at hand. But then I realised I was being hypocritical because a “hail-mary” comment that I left in the midst of a huge number of comments on another blog was read by exactly the right person. It still amazes me and gives me huge faith in blogs.

    http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/2006/08/just-another-remarkable-day-in.html

  • LayZ

    I will say that Scoble does a pretty good job of self correcting. Moreso than a majority of other bloggers. Just wish it wasn’t necessary so often and the more validation was done up front. Because it often sends the blogosphere spiralling downward and there are times where the correction comes too late. So, a bit more disscipline up front would go a long way to making the “blogosphere” even more credible.

    Yea, I think Cuban is great. I find it somewhat interesting that he was bascially playing the podcasting game long before anyone thought to attach some geeky name to it. Granted the concept of portability had yet to arrive, but the basic concept he had down. Which is why I respect his opinions about this new new thing much more than those just getting into it.

  • LayZ

    I will say that Scoble does a pretty good job of self correcting. Moreso than a majority of other bloggers. Just wish it wasn’t necessary so often and the more validation was done up front. Because it often sends the blogosphere spiralling downward and there are times where the correction comes too late. So, a bit more disscipline up front would go a long way to making the “blogosphere” even more credible.

    Yea, I think Cuban is great. I find it somewhat interesting that he was bascially playing the podcasting game long before anyone thought to attach some geeky name to it. Granted the concept of portability had yet to arrive, but the basic concept he had down. Which is why I respect his opinions about this new new thing much more than those just getting into it.

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  • JM

    Someone up there wrote: “Exited about the future?” – Why – because Dell validated your business model, or because you are afraid they will destroy it?

    I would say it’s probably because he knew something was going on, and HP bought Voodoo PC. Seems to me like Rahul made the right choice in partners.

  • JM

    Someone up there wrote: “Exited about the future?” – Why – because Dell validated your business model, or because you are afraid they will destroy it?

    I would say it’s probably because he knew something was going on, and HP bought Voodoo PC. Seems to me like Rahul made the right choice in partners.

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