Intel is on a bit of a spending spree at the moment. Last week the company announced it was buying computer security giants, McAfee. Today they have confirmed they are buying the wireless part of the German chip maker, Infineon. It seems that the company is continuing its trend of getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But does that really work? Ten years ago the Intel share price was almost $73 now it is just $21. Getting bigger does not seem to be getting better.
In the past it was always thought that bigger was better. Google assumes that to be true today – bigger websites generally get higher ranking than smaller websites. And we will pay more for bigger things than smaller things. Consider a pot of face cream. You can buy 50ml of the stuff in a giant pot and pay some ludicrous price to get rid of your wrinkles. Or you can get the same kind of cream in a small tube and pay much less. The only difference is the size of the container – you still get 50ml of face cream. Similarly we pay more for a thicker book than we do for a small, thin one. Yet, with careful use of layout the bigger book only has the same number of words as the smaller one; we end up paying more for the same thing simply because it is bigger. We value bigger things than smaller things.
So it is no surprise that it has always been thought that big cities are better than small towns. Indeed, economists have pointed to the fact that financial power is linked to the size of a city. But, perhaps those economists have been blinded by the bigger is better argument. New research shows it is not size that matters, so much as interconnectivity – networks. This study found that small towns and cities have emerged as powerful economic forces because of the connections they have made – both physical and electronic. The more connected a city, the more economically powerful it becomes. The research suggests that in the past it was not the size of a town that really mattered. What was happening was that the population size enabled greater networking. Size only mattered in that it afforded more connections between people which then generated more financial power.
These days, of course, cities do not need the population in one place to be able to network. Thanks to the Internet, those economic networks can be established even if your town is only small. Big is not best, it seems. Rather, connected is best.
So, what does this imply for your blog. Too many people appear to be chasing traffic, subscribers – sheer size. Indeed, blog popularity lists are based on numbers of subscribers or readers; you can even get badges to show off your size. Whoopee…!
But remember Intel and their share price. Perhaps size is not better. Perhaps your blog would do better if you simply had it more connected. Establishing connections between your blog and other blogs would be more beneficial than chasing numbers. Perhaps working together with other influential bloggers would do you more good than trying to get another 50 readers today. Perhaps the size of your blog doesn’t matter as much as WHO reads it.
Focusing on size may be taking your blogging journey in the wrong direction. Concentrating on networking your blog – enter social media – is much more likely to produce success.
