Poker Bloggers and Readers Unite
This post isn’t just for poker bloggers, despite the title. But if you are a poker blogger, for the sake of those people searching for legitimate advice about poker in the blogosphere, here’s some advice.
If you’ve been following this blog to any degree, you know that posts have been a bit sparse. I’m new to the whole poker blogging thing, despite being a big fan for many years of pretty much any kind of card game. There’s always tons to write about, but without any sort of feedback, it’s very difficult to feel that you’re writing anything of value. So to experiment, I occasionally try to stir things up. Still no response. I know you’re out there though, reading these posts.
Well, regardless, Andy - who owns this blog - suggested I try to write a bit more frequently. Fair enough. I figure, if I’m going to write anything of value here, presumably for people who want to learn about poker and not just for those who already blog about it, I’m going to have to do a bit of research.
My own cardplaying skills come from my background in mathematics and programming. But games like Texas Hold’em are more about reading players, to get around the luck of the draw.
So what do I do for some research? I go to Technorati, my fave search engine for the blogospere, and add the search terms “poker”, “Texas Hold’em” and “Californa Hold’em” to my watchlist. What do I find? Nothing. The message is: “Sorry, there were no results in the last 7 days.”
So am I the only poker blogger tagging my blog entries? A quick jaunt through the blogosphere to scan 12 poker blogs reveals absolutely no use of tagging whatsoever - other than the internal categorizing that some weblog platforms allow you to use on your posts.
Then I try just a regular search for “poker” at Technorati. The result? There are 1,496,689 posts that include the word “poker”. And most of the first twenty results are from weblogs that really don’t have anything to do with poker.
Are you going to wade through all those results, trying to find a few good poker blogs, especially if you’re new to the game? Sure, there are numerous ways to find poker weblogs, but my point is that not everyone is going to know that. With Texas Hold’em becoming immensely popular all over the world, and with California Hold’em being a new competitor for your interest, there are always new readers to be gained. Let’s make it easier for these readers.
A reader can, of course, use the “authority” slider in the Technorati search panel to reduce the number of results and supposedly increase the relevance. That helps a bit, but surprisingly, several relevant posts are from non-poker blogs, including a newswire service announcing poker-related merchandising companies.
Finally, I try using Technorati’s “tag search” feature for blog posts marked tagged “poker”. Success at last. Well, better than the two previous attempts.
So what’s the problem? With the exception of some sp.am.mers, Texas Hold’em has raised the image of poker. Professionals and celebrities are raising money for charity, and there seems to be a a mild but concerted effort to appeal to a wider range of fans. Up here in Canada, at least within a 100 mile radius around Toronto, there are at least 4-5 channels televising poker games on the weekends. There’s such a lack of televised events that some channels are showing repeat celebrity/ charity tourneys or amateurs no one has heard of.
I say great. More interest means more potential readers. So let’s make it easier for anyone newly interested in the game to find poker blogs. I have a number of ideas on how we can do this, but I’d really like feedback from both poker bloggers as well as poker blog readers. Should poker bloggers use more Technorati-style tagging? Given that Technorati does not seem to have updated their index of this blog in nearly 6 months, this may not be the best solution.
Should someone set up a digg- or delicious-style site that makes it incredibly easy to find new, legit poker posts and vote on them? A plain old directory? A special adult gaming search engine? What do you want to see? What do you think would make it easier for poker enthusiasts to find what they’re looking for?
[SIDE NOTE: To find SOME blogs about poker, try the Technorati blog finder. My point is that it should be easy for newbies to find poker blogs, without so many false results.]
Technorati Tags: thepokerblog, the poker blog, texas holdem, poker articles, cardplaying, card playing
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