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Back in college I was a sociology major. And yes, I am gainfully employed, thank you very much.

I only mention that because the social media phenomenon is particularly interesting to me because of the sociological aspects of the interactions and connections between participants.

After podcamp, I was thinking about the motivation behind adding friends, following people on twitter, and cross-linking to other bloggers when it hit me: I’ve heard of this before:

Reciprocal Altruism- when someone provides a benefit to another without expecting any immediate payment or compensation. However, reciprocal altruism is not unconditional. Firstly the act of altruism must give rise to a surplus of cooperation, in the sense that the gains to the beneficiary must be perceived to be meaningfully larger than the costs to the benefactor. Secondly the act of altruism should be reciprocated by the original beneficiary if the situation is later reversed. Failure to do so will usually cause the original benefactor to withdraw future acts of altruism. In order for the altruist not to be exploited by non-reciprocaters, it would be expected that reciprocal altruism can only exist in the co-presence of mechanisms to identify and punish “cheaters”.

The Benefits of Blogging

The best blogs primarily link to other blogs for one reason: they think that the content is interesting, and that people will be interested in what the other blog has to offer. By definition, bloggers hope to be perceived as trusted advisors.

Because of that, bloggers are in the business of reputation building and management. Linking to great content adds authority and trust.

The Surplus of Cooperation

As is stated in the definition, the act of linking must create a surplus of cooperation. The cost of linking to another blogger is incredibly low and insanely easy. But the benefit to new readers, googlejuice, etc. is inversely proportional, meaning huge.

Reciprocal Linking

Let’s say I run a blog that is moderately read. When people link to my blog, my benefit is very high. If I work long and hard and increase my readership dramatically, it only makse sense that I give back some link love to those that have advanced my blog’s authority.

In addition, when a high-profile blogger links to a much smaller, upstart blog, the smaller blog will almost certainly link back to the bigger one, thus continuing to perpetuate the big dog’s popularity and authority.

For instance, let’s say this blog post is picked up by mashable or Techmeme. Assuming our humble server didn’t melt, I would be insane not to link to the coverage there, as it would be both a point of pride and a point of evidence that this blog is authoritative on a subject. And though not as beneficial to the rockstars in comparison, high profile blogs retain their popularity by continuing to build links from smaller players. I believe the marketing folks call that a “win-win.”

Punishing The Cheaters

Comment spam and trackback spam are perfect examples of those that try to game the system. Since links are currency, and really linking to a blog takes some effort on behalf of the blogger, the dark hats try to circumvent the system by posting spam comments and trackback spam.

It could be argued that the presence of the cheaters increases the value of the trackback or comment link. Let me attempt to explain:

Since bloggers are burdened with so much comment spam, they must install mechanisms and processes (both automation by way of filtering and manual filtering of those that sneak in) to make sure their comments and trackbacks are legit. The amount of work it takes to get rid of the garbage serves to increase the value of those comments and trackbacks that survive rounds of filtering.

Simply ignoring the cheaters and letting comment spammers and trackback spammers through is potentially damaging in a number of ways. First, spam begets spam. When spammers see that a blog is susceptible to their techniques, the floodgates open, and the blog is deluged with garbage and Viagra ads. When this happens, readers perceive the blog itself to be substandard and, well, lazy.

In addition, the mighty Google sees the trackback links and can assume the blog (however innocent) is nothing but a link farm, thus blowing away the site’s page rank and sentencing it to the horrors of banishment.

Having a system to weed out and punish the cheaters is absolutely critical in blogging.

Conclusion:

Though blogging may be seen as a self-promoting exercise by some, I have to disagree. Blogging and linking to other content is a complex system based on a common set of shared goals and values, with built in reinforcements and punishments, all serving to perpetuate the benefits of all participants……as long as the content is good.

In other words, the next time someone chides you for being a blogger, start dropping some game theory on them. Works every time.

Note: If you liked this post, please drop a comment. I was somewhat reluctant to post this, as it seemed a little thick for Blogstring. If I’m wrong and this is NOT boring, I’d like to know, as I have another post in mind on the sociological notion of Reputation and its application to the blogging world.

Filed under: Uncategorized, blogging, podcamp Boston