RSS Feeds: The Effects of Giving
Anytime you give, and it doesn't matter what the object of the giving is, you almost always receive something in return. Objects in this context include:
- Link love (oh, how some people hate that phrase). Linking to blogs that have content related to your own or content that you've written about.
- Charity. Giving to everyone from family to people you don't even know.
- Favors. "Digging" and "Stumbling" without being asked to do so.
Link love (or blog appreciation as I like to call it now) results in two things: 1) Pingbacks and trackbacks to your own blog, and 2) Visitors to the blogs that you link to will sometimes see your ping and visit your blog as a direct result. There's a good chance the author(s) of a particular blog will visit your blog as well.
Charity comes in all shapes and sizes and doesn't necessarily mean money. You can give your time, your labor, your knowledge, and (of course) money. When you give any of these things away, it's human nature to reciprocate with something and that something is usually worth far more to you than what you gave in the first place.
Favors are also a form of giving, as long as you don't ask for anything in return. Digging and stumbling for blogs can be used as favors. If you don't know what I'm talking about because you're new to all this, just visit Digg and StumbleUpon and get involved.
As far as I'm concerned, giving means nothing if I always tell people that I'm doing it at the time. I don't need my ego stroked and I don't require anything in return, ever. It amazes me how I almost always receive something in return, regardless of how anonymous I choose to be.
Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis knows that I link to almost every blog I visit, in one way or another, at one time or another. It doesn't matter if I agree with their written words or not. If I took the time to read or even just look at something, it had to be worth it or I wouldn't have gone there in the first place. I attribute this as one of the things that continues to propel my rankings in an upward direction.
I'm not bragging, because I have a fixed income, that I support two families here — both families are related to me through my wife. I would love to get more involved in other charitable projects, but my income (at this time) and my banking situation doesn't give me that flexibility. Members of both families know how I feel and still aggressively attempt to do things for me that they know I can't do or don't like to do.
I have a lot of "digg friends" now as well as a lot of "stumble friends". I digg almost every submission made by my friends on Digg and I have my StumbleUpon toolbar set to stumble pages for "Friends". I'm sure other people do the same thing. How else can I explain the sudden bursts of traffic that I get?
These are just some examples of the effects of giving that I've experienced. What kind of effects have you experienced as the result of giving?
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There's only one thing I don't like about your philosophy… you make people too addicted to your blog
I have the same philosophy as you, I continue too give until something makes me change my mind. I give too individuals not group charity.
Giving is a gift, some people have the gift, some people don't. God gave different gifts to different people.
Here's the text from the Scriptures:
Romans 12:6-9
6: Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
7: Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;
8: Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
9: Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
Matthew, I couldn't comment on your blog as your spam blocker had my IP blacklisted. Yours is the third or fourth blog that has done this to me of late. It's all the same cause "Bad Behaviour".
Actually I tried the contact form and that blocked me as well. I sent a mail to you at your ejabs.com id (matt) but didn't know whether you check it often.
regards
Okay Hari:
I'm checking into it now…& will let you know via email
Oh, and RT. I would be interested to know your views on IP blacklisting. I think it's a hugely ineffective (and worse, counter-productive) mechanism to fight spam because IP is so dynamic and lot of people share IPs in countries with public ISPs. Besides your true spammer always keeps changing IP by using bots.
Sorry for not replying sooner. I was out for the count.
I use only http:BL is the only blacklist I will ever use. It blocks honey pot IPs for 14 days (ignoring older data). In other words, if a particular IP address has not been used for spam in 14 days, it falls off the list. Most of the same IP ranges end up on it over and over again, identified as email harvesters and known comment spammers. I tried Bad Behavior once, and even after I turned it off, it still blocked you because it was in the cache.
Other blacklists are ineffective because they're completely inaccurate, no matter how hard they try. Honey pots are the only way to identify malicious IP addresses.
None of this will matter when IPv6 gets adopted globally. There will be no more dynamic IP addresses with that standard.
Other blacklists have too many false positives. http:BL is based on data collected for over two years. I'm been part of the data collection project for that long as well.
Yes, and commenting is also a form of "giving". So it's related to this topic.
I enjoy comments on my blog more than link-backs. I like the personal touch when people take the time to actually read and post their thoughts.
I like comments better too, but incoming links to a post are the next best thing. On blogs I visit regularly I like to do both.
Linking seems to be the best way to bring in new readers… not just one-time visitors… and while big numbers are good, increasing numbers of actual returnees are better, don't you think?
Effective linking, yes. Linking without writing relevant or related content is counter productive because it appears like spam to the recipient. That's what splogs do.
Another thought: Some blogs never link to anyone. These are the ones that no one seems to know about. I found some like that through Technorati and checked their stats… abysmal.
If you get a lot of Digg and StumbleUpon visitors, you will get some return visitors, just not as many. If you use linking only, your only return visitors will be other bloggers. The social networks provide return visitors that are not bloggers.
Matthew, I've had good luck dropping BB2 for Akismet and Simple Spam Filter and I've been all good for over a month with this set up. Now hari and Sindhu and others in India can visit and comment on my blog without being blocked thanks to a bot.
Its a thought.
How do you automatically stumble/digg your friend's posts?
btw. I should make more friends ..
For StumbleUpon, set the toolbar category to "Friends" and you will stumble the pages in their profile. Many of their pages include their own blogs. In Digg, you go to your profile, then to the "Friends" tab and then to the "Submitted" link to the left.
How do you make more friends? Digg a lot of posts of non-friends. They'll find you and then you check who befriended you and reciprocate. It's similar with StumbleUpon.
How sad…I clicked the friend button on the StumbleUpon bar, and I got my own page
It means that you are my only friend on SU 
Anyway I stumbled me
(I have no idea why it unstumble me)
Hahahaha… you crack me up.
[...] is as personal as you make it, and you are the moderator that has the last say. I recently found a post from a blogger who has gone through some tough times, yet he still gives without any avail. [...]