Blog rankings, etc

Vic has launched into full tax geek mode with a ranking of business law blogs.  He notes the recent success of the Conglomerate blog after his merger, and says that this is “contrary” to my “dubious musings.” 

To set the record straight, I never doubted Conglomerate would get a bigger market – I simply said that, like other antitrust violations, the Conglomerate’s success would come at the consumers’ expense – in this case because they must consume either Vic or or the other Conglomerates even if they only want to consume one of them.  I just hope that Vic keeps his data up even after the antitrust investigation begins. He might also want to add a Herfindahl to make things easier for the trustbusters.

On a related subject: should we care about these rankings?  Frankly, I don’t understand the numbers Vic refers to, but I do pay some attention to my hits and where they come from. But Tyler Cowen, who’s at the top of the econ blogs, says “I've long believed that blog writers should not spend much (if any) time checking their stats.” This sounds like something a Martin Amis character would say – you know, success just comes to me, I don’t really invite it.

But seriously -- saying you don’t check your “stats” seems kind of odd for somebody who believes in markets.  Or are blogs outside of markets if you don’t do it for financial compensation or as your main job?  That would also be an odd thing for an economist to say, especially Tyler, who is known for studying the sort of markets (e.g., art, popular culture) that most economists ignore.

My view is that if I really didn't care at all who was reading me and why, I would write a diary. Since I'm reaching out to others, it makes sense to want to know who's out there.

Comments

[Victor]

As to being in full tax geek mode, I plead guilty. Rankings are for nerds.

As to calling your prior comments "dubious musings," yeah, I was just making up a straw man for a little fun. I have no easy way of knowing how many of my tax readers followed me over to Conglomerate (and whether they are hurt in some way) or whether Conglomerate readers/consumers in fact benefit from having to scan over my stuff on the way to Gordon and Christine's.