What Does your Blogroll, Bookmarks and Outbound Links Say About You?

Who’s in your blog neighbourhood?

A few weeks ago, I began taking a good hard look at my list of favourite blogs. And, I started looking at other people’s favourite blogs. Then, I realised just how much these ‘favourites’ reveal something about us. And, here’s how I ‘read’ my own (and others’):

1) By content/topic. It’s easy to see what people’s passions are, based not just on the content of their own blog, but on the kind of blogs that they like to read. You may be writing all about parenting or travel, but if there’s several ‘favourites’ linked to deep sea diving content, then likelihood is that you really long to be underwater.

2) By the type of blogs/bloggers. If you tend to link mostly to friends, family and online buddies, it shows that your heart is in your relationships. If you tend to link to people in your areas of interest/profession, this reveals a networker. In a similar vein, I tend to see a ‘name dropper’ (or one with high online social ambitions) whenever I see folks constantly linking mostly to “A-list bloggers”, especially if they’re not A-listers.

3) By the number of favourites/links. People with masses of ‘favourites’ tend to have the “I really love you all and will a few of you say that you like me back too?” message. Either that, or that they have too much time on their hands. On the other hand, people with very few outbound links tend to show some kind of insecurity - a fear to show others what they really like, a fear that people will leave their blog and never come back… Or perhaps, a sense of being insular. But really, I think most people have “just about the right amount” of links.

4) By location/culture. It tells folks who you’re affiliated with - or who you wish to be affiliated with. People who tend to link ‘only to their own kind’ pretty much put up a ‘No Outsiders Allowed’ sign on their blogs.

5) By quality. If you tend to link heavily to text-heavy and/or well written blogs, it says that you love to read. If you tend to link to folks with plenty of photos, it says you’re a visual person.

Of course, there’s no scientific evidence to these musings. So, this is not a ‘definitive guide’ to blogroll, bookmarks and outbound links analysis. Just my thoughts and observations.

If anything, to me, I learned from my own blogroll/favourites, etc that:

a) I don’t have a list of A-listers in my blogroll/feed subscription. I realised that even though I subscribed to many of them a long time ago (to keep up with blogging industry news and such), most of them just bore me. Probably the same way I bore them. Heh.

b) I’m not fond of blogs that update too many times in one day. No matter how great the content, I just have no time to cope with reading every single update.

c) My interests are varied. But, I am most drawn to artsy craftsy stuff.

d) The blogs that I like the best are ones where I find I have the most things in common with the blogger. Either that, or that the blogger has qualities that I admire and I wish to emulate in my life. Geeky-creative types rule!
So, if you were to analyse your own blogroll/bookmarks/favourites/outbound links, what will they say about you?

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