Popular sites that got launched prior to 2005 (Mashable, HuffPost, ReadWriteWeb, and many others…) benefited from the culture that existed in the blogosphere prior to Twitter and Facebook.

If you wrote a blog post, and I wanted to alert my audience of your post, I would write a post of my own, and link to yours. Google loved this, because backlinks were -and still are- at the heart of Google search algorithm.

But then Twitter and Facebook came along and Social sharing took over. The culture of the blogosphere changed gradually but irrevocably. It enabled anyone -not just bloggers- to share content with their audience.

In this scenario, “Audience” is a catch-all term for Friends on Facebook, and Followers on Twitter.

Even bloggers, who used to live in the culture of backlinking, are MUCH more likely to share your content on Twitter/Facebook, than they are to write a post on their blog and link back to you.

Rising Tide

A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. And so it was.

Blogs that came into existance prior to Twitter/Facebook benefited tremendously from the culture of backlinking that existed prior to Twitter/Facebook takeover.

As Twitter and Facebook gradually became pervasive, these old blogs compounded the benefits because Google would send them traffic, and visitors would then share their content via their social channels. Which would drive more people to those blogs. And the virtuous cycle would repeat itself ad infinitum.

Uphill Battle

And while old blogs cruise smoothly down the Attention Express, new blogs are left to fight an uphill battle.

New blogs are deployed into the Culture of sharing, NOT into the Culture of backlinking. Google has recognized this, and has deployed their own Social Graph network (G+) to compensate for a massive shift in signaling being sent to its search algorithm.

But G+ is not able to compensate for this shift yet. Perhaps never will.

Why Does It Matter?

It matters because this has turned the Blogosphere into a society of few rich and many poor.

A small percentage of old blogs enjoy the compounding effect of backlinks + social shares, while new(er) blogs are starving for Attention.

Throughout human history, societies that were prosperous, well educated and progressive, were societies with a strong and expansive middle class.

Societies that are oppressive, tyrannical, and thought-controlling are societies with few rich and many poor.

Twitter and Facebook have turned the Blogosphere into a society of few rich and many poor. And the rich have no interest in changing the status quo.

Which is why certain belief systems are promoted by the rich. A good example is guest blogging as the answer to all your blog’s problems. Another myth that won’t die is the “supreme” importance of Traffic. Both are pure, unadulterated bullshit.

See:

The Solution

Is there a solution? If so, what is it? I believe there is.

It is this kind of knowing that drives the development of Triberr.

Sure, Triberr gives your content a boost in distribution. ReBlog feature enables you to build links and subvert the need for Traffic by generating Attention instead. And Triberr’s Unifying Comment System provides ZERO loss of engagement.

But mostly, our goal with Triberr is to crate an expansive Middle Class. If we manage to turn the Blogosphere from few-rich/many-poor, into a society with a well-off Middle Class, we’ve done our job well.

Final Word

Is yours.

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