I'm your first sucker, and it works great!
-Steve

Dammit, I am even writting a post about it and I fell for it!!!!

What just happened?

Excellent. Thanks, Will. Our traffic is way above normal today. I'll get an update posted today. I've been closing on my home this morning (yay!) so I haven't been able to email you or leave a comment until now.

You so got me, Will.

Let's see...??? WILLisms.com has made me into a super freak!

Will, you may have Uber-Funnelled so effectively that folks are coming back or going somewhere else out of frustration or embarassment without reading our post. Though I doubt it. But I hope some bloggers are reading it for what I think are some effective and less-effective ways to re-direct readers.

Part of the inspiration for that article goes back to our emails and comments on link-whoring and the diminishing effect of carnival links.

Indeed, Hoodlumman, not all links are created equal.

My BABE THEORY post was the first Instalanche I ever got. But he framed it like, "here is a theory of political movements."

Not exactly link-funneling language.

Meanwhile, an off-hand "babe theory" reference from Michelle Malkin or another bigger blogger, in a post filled with links, gets many, many hits, every single time.

The worst kind of link there is: a broken link. This week's Carnival of Revolutions had a broken link from instapundit. Quid Nimis blog missed out on even a quasi-instalanche. And the cause of the Carnival was set back a bit. Less people might submit for the next week. Less people might want to host. And so on.

All because of a broken link.

Incidentally, I have been contacted by the "head honcho" of the Carnival of Capitalists, which I am hosting next week. He (Jay, of Accidental Verbosity) only agreed to give me the password to the Carnival of Capitalists submission email account if I promised not to assign numerical ratings to the posts. "There was some concern," he said.

Lame.

But I agreed, anyway. Although I already feel a little regret. We'll see what I can come up with, though. Carnivals should direct people to things they will want to read about, not any random post anyone submits. And what's the point of a host, if people really just want an automaton posting the entries in no particular order?

Will, can you weed out entries? That's as effective as giving numerical rankings.

You can also be sneaky and give 'star' rankings... one to five stars or cluster the good ones and the top and what not.

You only agreed to no numerical ranking... *wink wink*

To add fuel to the fire hoodlumman is attempting to start, may I point out that letter grades do not count as "numerical rankings?"

And yes, you jerk, you got me, too.

J.

I just thought it meant that no matter where I try to go I always end up at WILLisms.com ... That is why I think I am a super freak! WILLisms.com is super dooper!...

You really horn swaggled me! Ha