By Flexo

This is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, sort of… but as a participant and observer as the blogosphere expanded exponentially over the last few years (and the general explosion of blogging since 1999), these things bug me. I don’t mean to offend anyone. They say rules are made to be broken, and I’ve broken most of these (let he who casts the first stone cast at me), so with no further ado, here they are, my top ten blogosphere pet peeves.

10. “If you like my blog, click my ads!” Aside from being against certain terms of service and leading to the devaluation of web advertising in general, there are better ways to make money than blogging if that’s what the goal is.

9. Blogging about blogging. And here I am, breaking this rule, but at least I’m not cluttering up my main blog. I don’t want to read about your sponsors or the $10 you’re getting from PayPerPost for writing about PayPerPost or about how Blogger’s having stability problems. Just write content, save the meta-content (like this) for somewhere else, or at least for the weekend.

8. “Just writing to say there will be no posts today.” Well, that counts as a post. I think you meant “no relevant content today,” but then why bother posting at all? We can see there’s no relevant content.

7. Emails asking, “I just started a blog. Could you link to me?” If I look at your blog, and you haven’t linked to anyone, you’re not getting a link from me. This is regardless of whether there’s content. Before you ask for links, link to others.

6. One size fits all. I have fine china next to my computer so that everytime a blogger doles out advice as if it applies to everyone, I can pick up a plate and throw it into the fireplace. (Note: I do not own any china nor do I have a fireplace.)

5. Hot topic copycats. It’s obvious you’re a (traffic) whore when you start writing on your blog about the same topics that you see attracting traffic on other blogs. For example, in the personal finance blogosphere, everyone wants their own heated “discussion” about a certain author/guru who probably digs all the attention.

4. Posts that complain about the blogosphere. I was reading this blog once, and like, the author just started this whole big rant about, like, how the authors of the blogs she reads don’t write from her point of view. She thought everyone should be focused on saving money, so why were sooooo many bloggers writing about earning money? Like, everyone has their own perspective. Don’t read blogs that you don’t, like, like. Pretty simple, right?

3. Affected voice. Writers write as they speak, plus one. What I mean is writing styles tend to be a little more mature and coherent than the way people speak in person. This is natural. When bloggers compensate by slumming it and write as if they’re less intelligent then they are, then perhaps they weren’t that intelligent in the first place. I guess everyone needs a gimmick.

2. Group writing projects. Maybe they work for ProBlogger who has an audience of 1,000,000,000,000 eager pairs of eyes, but otherwise I’ve found them to be a massive waste of time for everyone involved. However, the person who organizes the project gets to experience the euphoria of being king for a day. Just remember your kingdom is smaller than Monaco.

And the number one blogosphere pet peeve…

1. Lists.