What’s interesting to me about the early days of blogging is the extent that different services like Technorati and blogrolls, were really gamification tools. Don’t forget blogrings, and carnivals! But the effort put into these things really did not translate to readership unless you were one of the top-ranked blogs.

For all their faults, Facebook and Twitter do reward effort, and it is a competition with yourself to build more followers, not so obviously against the top-ranked few.