What The Web Wants: More Sex Blogs
December 8th, 2005 by Melissa Gira
Where are all the sex bloggers? Sam Sugar went looking for you this week, and logs this report:
Based on this it appears that the sex business doesn’t yet know the difference (wait for it) between its (WAIT for it) RSS and it’s elbow (YES! YES! Pure gold. Damn I’m funny.) Another conclusion might be that sex bloggers don’t tag, but in that case, we can assume as many sex-bloggers ignore their tags as those in the mainstream, and still make comparisons between categories. The other alternative is that there’s been a cooling effect, where the big blogs are so effectively dominating a niche that they’ve killed competition Google-Mart style…
If you think you’ve ‘missed out’ on the porn boom… in the blog space – things have only just begun.
Demonstrated like a true sex geek, with charts and all.
N.B.: Damn, that was fast! The linklust flows fast and fierce! Hardcore affections to you all:
- Fleshbot (”having another weblog on the scene that promises “erotic intelligence for a hotter tomorrow” is the kind of “competition” we’re happy to have.“)
- Viviane’s Sex Carnival (”a lovely sense of what’s sexy and what’s smart and has no qualms about mixing them together - in a pretty package nonetheless.“)
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and of course:
- SugarBank (”as far as I’m aware, is only the second sex blog in a major network. It’s an interesting development, with Gawker’s Fleshbot and now Sexerati, it’s as if Conde Naste and IPC published Playboy and Hustler respectively.“)
December 10th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Well, there are loads of sex blogs, and big ones too. But maybe they don’t inter-link very much with mainstream blogs. Sex bloggers are usually happy to link to each other, but the majority of their visitors, if they are bloggers, might be a little unconfortable linking to them from their non-sex blogs. With a few exceptions. Fleshbot has managed to get an almost mainstream respectability where trendy techies feel that it is quite cool to link to it. In part because it is frequently mentioned in BoingBoing and sites like that. Most sex bloggers wouldn’t be so lucky, and the majority of their visitors won’t easily admit publically what they read every day.
December 10th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
Absolutely, we’re at a linkroll disadvantage — there’s a lot of interlinking going on, but as far as denting the blogosphere in general, we’re unlikely — for the reasons you lay out — to break the Technorati 100 in a significant way. Which is bizarre — geeks are so craving this stuff, and reading it, and even writing it (did you see Kottke’s recent “secret sites” post?) — just not so much under easily Google-able professional identities.
I’m not disputing that we’re out there — I don’t think Sam is either — just that, for the geeks that we are, why aren’t we better penetrating here? Is it because we’re in some sort of sort of online sex ghetto? And is that a product of architecture (ie, Technorati tagging, PageRank, etc.) or does it relate to a lack of sex bloggers who want to maximize their public profile?
December 11th, 2005 at 10:45 am
You should ask Scrivs for his sex blog. It’s more Coolios than Fleshbot though.
December 11th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
“[W]hy aren’t we better penetrating here?”
Heh.
There certainly is a NSFW ghetto — I’ve seen plenty of mainstream bloggers leave comments on sex blogs but they rarely link to them. We’re everyone’s secret habit.
On the other hand, our search engine traffic more than compensates for the lack of Technorati love. Technorati rankings are, after all, only a rough proxy for traffic. As an example, Dooce has 5x the inbound links that Fleshbot has, but FB has a much better Alexa ranking.
We just have to build our own networks.
P.S. - Some of your links are a little screwy — they seem to be getting appended with ‘=true’.
December 11th, 2005 at 9:03 pm
I think the issue is that many sex bloggers get a great deal of traffic so the thought of even having to penetrate the general blogosphere doesn’t even cross their minds.
December 12th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
I’ve had a few interesting crossover moments in which I’ve been blogged about or linked to by more mainstream blogs, and its almost never a 100% lovely experience: either someone is insensitive or it gets super-jokey. I am more than capable of handling situations like that - I kinda relish it, to be honest - but its also very tiring. Yes, we do reside in a sex ghetto, but that isn’t an entirely bad thing.
I definitely agree that mainstream bloggers don’t necessarily feel comfortable leaving their names in our comments, which is sad. On the other hand, sometimes I comment on the non-sex blogs I read and get interesting reactions - mostly surprise at my interest and smartness on things not-naked.