> Has attracting a blog audience become harder? I've been involved with the Internet virtually since it began, and we're now in its third phase. The phases: 1

> Has attracting a blog audience become harder? I've been involved with the Internet virtually since it began, and we're now in its third phase. The phases: 1. Forum for technical discussions and data transfer. 2. Soapbox for social communication. 3. Virtual mall. The "virtual mall" identity is now so strong and all-encompassing that if you're not selling something, people begin to distrust you -- the opposite of the instincts present in phases 1 and 2, where you were distrusted if you were selling something. So my advice is to write blog posts that include links to relevant (or irrelevant) products. This strategy assures that, regardless of the blog's content, the fact that it links to products or services assures that someone, somewhere will reciprocally link to it for purely commercial reasons. I know this sounds cynical, but it's true -- nothing assures an audience as reliably as linking to a product who cares about your link and who -- for self-serving reasons -- is willing to link back. I get appeals almost daily from commercial interests to include links on my site to their products -- on a payment basis, of course -- or reciprocal links, but I've always turned such requests down. Consequently, my website is now located in a kind of purgatory reserved for sites that haven't caught a train to the present or exploited their content (and their audience) to the fullest. The artifact under discussion: https://arachnoid.com https://arachnoid.com