37signals

I’ve been reading with interest the latest flurry of blog posts on the subject matter that famous blogs don’t have the social bookmarking icons that many other blogs have. The inciting post was written by 37 signals and specifies that content is what matters and icons diminish the quality of your blog (the writer so eloquently put it as making your site “look cheap.”)

The most notable comment was:

Zero out of Technorati’s top 10 blogs feature those icons. And only two out of the 15 entries in the current crop at Digg’s Top Today page offer “Digg me” icons.

A few of my favorite bloggers responded, some with mixed emotions and others with outright negativism. I can’t say I’ve seen a post in support of what Matt at 37signals said (so I’ll applaud him for his link baiting efforts most notably defined by Lesson 2: “Controversy will incite passion. Passion drives links.”)

Darren Rowse of Problogger read the thread with interest and didn’t know what to make of it. I happen to be contemplating the value of these social bookmarking icons myself, but I think that Darren does doubt the power of them a lot more than I do (and I’m certainly not as popular as he is!)