Just Another Remarkable Day In The Blogosphere.

You may have divined by now that I don't rate social networks very much but that I do value highly the connectivity of impassioned crowds which are facilitated and magnified by the blogosphere.

Some weeks ago, via a non business-related blog that I regularly read, I found myself reading the blog of a commenter thereon and chanced upon an informational post that I really liked and which I later kicked myself for not bookmarking. It was the kind of passionate, experiential piece that would help anyone who wanted to follow in that writer's footsteps.

It was also over a year old and on a blog I'd never previously visited and about which I had no information. I enquired of some technically-aware A listers as to whether there was some sort of software algorithm that could help me track it down. But no, the blogosphere is too big and disparate a social network for that to be feasible currently (or ever I would venture).

Thus, your cynical (albeit persistent) author found himself using the comment section of the original blog in a Hail-Mary attempt to track down the year old post from an unknown blog about a totally unrelated subject. I didn't hold out much hope and this lessened when the post I happened to comment upon stretched to over 150 comments (far, far more than normal on that blog due to unusual circumstances). Even if they returned to the blog on a regular basis (I had no idea if they would), there was little chance that my quarry would be interested in delving through this extended comment fest and chance upon my request. Or would they?

Today, weeks after I made my request and many weeks after my original blog safari, I find in my email a note from the original author. We're not connected by some faux social network, but rather we share a passionate interest in a third blog, our eyeballs are truly engaged when reading that blog and we feel a connection to fellow readers.

Fred Wilson writing recently about what attracted him to a blog summed it up well, I think, and echoed what I was talking about in regard to passive branding. He wrote that he is interested in reading a blog "As long as it's personal, real, and authentic." and that, I believe, is the type of engagement that all bloggers and indeed all marketers should be seeking because, as you can see from this experience, it can engender astonishing results.