The response to my recent posts, Why you shouldn't offer a newsfeed and Why you SHOULD offer a newsfeed illustrates an issue suggested by a post last month on Blogs as serious news media: the potential for bloggers with skewed opinions to skew the opinions of readers. "Why you shouldn't offer a newsfeed" generated a spike on my hit counter after it was picked up by a number of bloggers who disagreed with what I'd written. "Why you SHOULD offer a newsfeed", in which I myself disagreed with what I'd written, had no noticeable effect. Why? I think it's because the first post was controversial. People disagreed with it, and were perhaps a little annoyed by the assertions I'd made. Because less conflict and passion is produced by opinions one agrees with, less people link to and less people come to read them.

As a blogger who wants traffic coming to his site, what lesson did I learn? To be controversial and perhaps even a little offensive. "Your mother was a hamster!" Do I have your attention? In mainstreaming bloggers, do we run the risk of over-promoting people who stir up emotion, even if their writing is misleading or has little substance?

In all fairness, controversy isn't the only draw for blogs and newsfeeds. Few of the feeds I read are controversial at all--I read them for information. Also in fairness, mainstream media has its share of promotion-by-controversy. What's the name of that news talk show host who brings on famous guests and tries to get them flustered with difficult questions? Oh, is there more than one? I imagine there are many.

I don't plan to start writing outrageous pieces and stirring up arguments just to pump my hit counter, but I'll probably always remember how a post written to introduce the kinds of arguments and issues that promoters of blogging and newsfeeds might come up against unintentionally gave me a boost because my intentions were misunderstood. My voice will probably be affected somewhat. I'm just hoping that my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued. So I'll repeat myself, at the risk of being crude: there must be fifty reasons not to have a newsfeed.*

* Paul Simon, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover