Carnival Buzz

We ran across an old post in if:book ... well, it was a post from October 2005, which is practically the ice age for blog carnivals. In retrospect, the post was quite insightful:

It's worth paying attention to how these carnivals work because they provide at least part of the answer to a larger concern about the web: how to maintain quality and authority in a flood of amateur self-publishing. In the cycle of the carnival, blogging becomes a kind of open application process where your best work is dangled in the path of roving editors. You might say all bloggers are roving editors, but these ones represent an authoritative collective, one with a self-sustaining focus.

We certainly see increasing quality in carnivals as they mature. And, as we close in on the 250th published blog carnival, it's exciting to see the evolving buzz about blog carnivals, too.

You can see a recent chart of the growth of the blog carnival tag by pressing here. This chart provides good market feedback that blog carnivals are providing a useful service and, as quoted above, helping to maintain quality and authority in a flood of amateur self-publishing.

Some helpful reminders for the reader. If you have an idea for a blog carnival, you can start it by registering here and adding a carnival. If you started a carnival recently, please submit a recent edition to the New Carnival Showcase.

Now, back to some history.

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Read more from this blogger: if:book: October 2005 Archives