Is it all just a popularity contest?

[Tadhg Kelly]

I guess it is to an extent, but I'm having something of a negative reaction to all of the positive talk going on here about helping people, self belief, adverts, building traffic and getting noticed, which is it brings out feelings of popularity contests. Get the right subject, tap into a readership, all that sort of thing. Does anyone else experience this sometimes?

[Chris]

But I think that is just the nature of business. To "tap into" the right audience you have to provide something that is of value to them - and if that something is of significant value then they might pay you for it!

But no one will pay you for anything if they don't know that you and your [content/product/service] exists, so in order to deliver your [content/product/service] to people and make money from it, you first have to get word out to them that you're here and you might have something they'd be interested in.

So you're right, it is really just a popularity contest!

What aspect do you find negative? Is it perhaps that it can all sometimes feel a little transparent and that people are more focused on making money than providing value?

I think there is somewhat of a bandwagon scenario going on at the moment in the world of blogs and social/community websites. Not a million miles away from the "me too" attitude we saw on the internet at the turn of the century (and we all know what happened there!) I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing right now as this second dotcom boom is being driven more by inividuals rather than corporations... but anyway, I'm going off on a tangent there..

[ahimel]

It depends on how you define it, really. Yes, it is a popularity contest, inasmuchas you get paid/recognized based on how popular you are -- which is to say, how many people like you.

But usually "popularity contest" implies that the outcome will be judged not on the merits of the contestants, but on who has the most friends at the beginning of the contest.

Since in this case, the contestants are being judged on how popular they are, it's both true that they're being judged on popularity and on how well they've done. So it's a gray area.

But, you're not being judged on how many readers you have at the beginning, but how many you have at this time, and the contest never ends. So you can't technically lose, since there's never a single point where you have to give up.

On the other hand, I'm unwilling to put in the effort to popularize my blog, so perhaps I realize deep down that it's not worth the effort.

[Dating Specialist]

Well, I guess in life, popularity is something which we can't escape.

Some of us decide to use that as a measure of our success, while some choose to play the elusive game.

No matter what we do or say, whether we attract a certain following and audience or not goes to the ticking counter of how popular we are.

But I guess the difference is in the intentions. The intention to help, thereby becoming popular as an inevitable by-product due to the greatness of the asssistance, is different from the intention to pursue popularity thereby helping people with this in mind.

All IMHO guys