Carnival Buzz

We've noticed that blog carnivals improve with age and we wondered why that is. Not that you shouldn't read all the great new carnivals showing up at Blog Carnival. If you find a new carnival you like, stick with it! It's likely to get even better.

Why?

The Virtuous Cycle.

The first editions of a blog carnival have a small set of contributors and a small audience. The people whose blog posts have been included usually mention the carnival to their friends who may, in turn, mention it to their friends. Traffic to the new carnival begins.

Some of the friends and friends-of-friends then submit posts to upcoming editions of the carnival. With more submissions, carnival hosts have more material to consider. Over time, carnival hosts may have enough material that they start including just the higher quality submissions, or they start making more focused editions, or they start dividing the editions into focused sections. We see all these things happening in the more established blog carnivals.

Increased submissions leads to higher quality carnival editions which, in turn, leads to more friends telling more friends about the latest edition. Which, in turn, leads to more submissions.

Well, you get the picture. As your new carnival builds a community of interested readers, more bloggers submit posts and the quality of the carnival improves. It's the grass-roots power of community building.

For all those new up-and-coming carnivals, keep up the good work and your community will find you!