When we started Gamers With Jobs, it was with a fairly naïve concept, that providing a gaming website with a mature angle and an attention to quality articles would, itself, be enough to sustain the site. That we've been as successful in the venture as we have marvels me, because it seems increasingly clear that what we've accomplished is probably as much because of luck as actual hard work. Making a dent in the consciousness of any percentage of a population as a website is no easy feat made more difficult by the millions of users who share this virtual continent competing for exactly the same users. No wonder users have begun to pass the buck of finding content to someone else.

In the past few years the net has changed in small but perceptible ways. Non-corporate original content sites, the sites that fall under the far too broad heading of blogs, run the risk of being unintentionally hamstrung by the revolution of social networking, wiki and folksonomy sites and services. The natural digital-Darwinism of Web 2.0 has reasonably asked users if it makes more sense to pick two dozen favorite blogs and try to keep up with their constant onslaught of potentially inconsistent content, or use a service like Digg, del.icio.us, Slashdot or StumbleUpon to find the hourly "best of the web", but in doing so they have soaked up the traffic like a sponge and employed corruptible methods in doling that traffic back out.

The democracies of aggregation theoretically serve both ends equally by providing users an easy resource for finding good content and exposing linked sites to larger pools of users. It's supposed to make the entire process better for both sides of the coin. In practice they are manipulated by a small power-elite user base and organized groups manipulating the system while drawing long-term users away from the very websites they occasionally link. These services that reduce the complexity of the internet into a one-stop shop of intellectual consumerism have made such sites the Wal-Marts to our tiny mom-and-pop shops.

As I mentioned way back in my third article for GWJ back in ought-three, I am a numbers whore, which is an odd statement for someone who would rather have recited Chaucer from memory in Middle English -- Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote -- than be within striking distance of even a remedial math class. I'm sure this is a statement that nearly anyone with a website and stat-tracking software would make, except for the part about Chaucer. So, like any good web-blog-writer-manager-guy I'm interested in exploring what makes numbers go up while avoiding what makes numbers go down. This exploration, like most internet walkabouts, leads to a world where Web 2.0 is deconstructed and subverted, its flaws made most clear.

There is, both legitimate and otherwise, a well-trafficked subset of websites dedicated to the topic of generating traffic, not unlike the classic scam of becoming successful by selling the secrets of success. There are thousands of articles, blogs and quick tips on how to make your content appeal to Google, Digg or StumbleUpon, and best of all few of these tips include the troublesome suggestions of providing superior content or unique perspectives. In fact, doing that may be a waste of your time, and isn't really targeting your potential demographic very well. It feels like late night television commercials where you too can blog from home generating millions of hits and thousands of dollars in ad-revenue income by following a few simple steps to get linked. As far as I can tell the best way to generate traffic is to write about generating traffic.

The problem is, when browsing through the actual Web 2.0 sites, I see these practices in place and rewarded.

With sites that aggregate unique content becoming the center of browsing experiences, writers and site are feeling forced to manipulate their content to succeed in the environment. Married with concepts like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), internal linking and link sharing, becoming Web 2.0 successful has more to do with playing the game than creating compelling works. We're supposed to be as concerned with making sure that keywords are strategically placed in our content to ensure search engines correctly recognize and categorize our articles as we are creating compelling content. We're supposed to encourage snappy and, let's face it, misleading titles that will grab the attention of Diggers to position our articles correctly. We're supposed to join groups and pointlessly hand out Diggs or Stumbles like some sort of digital networking group, so that owners of sites I couldn't care less about will do the same for us and together we will rise above the tiny fools who don't know better.

But, and here's the really big problem for me, when a site, any site, succeeds and cracks through into spotlight of these centralized services, what's the payoff? A day or two of crushing traffic followed immediately by the same quiet as before. Web 2.0 simply does not encourage users to stay where the content is generated but instead where it is gathered. It is a subtle difference, but an important one.

Am I the only one who still Stumbles on a great article on a website and then sticks around to see if they have equally compelling content? The only one who doesn't immediately dash to the next random slot? Should we reward the makers of good content, or those who put in place empirical and potentially subverted systems for bringing information together?

I don't mean to judge or criticize Digg and its ilk. I think the effort itself is benign enough, and clearly they are providing a service that is being widely consumed. And, I feel that our own small site has succeeded despite my concerns, but I have little doubt that there are changes being made to the way content is being written to appeal to the millions of users gathered to share their transitory favorite links. I know by watching the Digging and Stumbling itself, and seeing the way the results that appear smack of manipulation.

All I'm saying is that next time you do your Stumbling, instead of finding something truly unique, engaging or genuine and then passing immediately back into your techno-enabled browsing, stick around that site for a while and reward its creator with sustained readership. Make the content creators the beneficiaries of traffic.