One day this here C-List Blogger got all worked up thinkin’ ’bout how that ole A-List Blogger had been cuttin’ up his capers, bouncing ’round till he’d come to believe he was the boss of the whole dadgum blogosphere. The C-List Blogger decided to lay some bait for that big-timin’ A-List Blogger.

He got some tar and mixed it with some turpentine, fixed up a contraption that he called an Attack Post. When he finished makin’ it, he put a straw hat on its head and sat the little thing in the middle of Memeorandum. The C-List Blogger, he lay off in the bushes to see what would happen.

Well, he didn’t have to wait long, ’cause by and by the A-List Blogger came pacing down the road — lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity — just as sassy as a jaybird. The A-List Blogger came prancing along until he saw the Attack Post and then he sat back on his hind legs like he was astonished. The Attack Post jus’ sat there, it did, and the C-List Blogger, he lay low.

“Good morning!” says the A-List Blogger, says he. Attack Post didn’t say a word, and the C-List Blogger, he lay low.

“What is the matter with you then? Are you deaf?” says the A-List Blogger, says he. “I’m going to teach you how to talk to respectable folk. If you don’t take off that hat and say howdy, I’m going to bust you wide open.”

Attack Post kept on saying nothin’ till the A-List Blogger finally drew back his fist, he did, and pow — he hit that Attack Post on the jaw. But his fist stuck and he couldn’t pull it loose. The tar held him.

“If you don’t let me loose, I’m going to hit you again,” says the A-List Blogger, says he, and with that he drew back his other fist and pow — he hit the Attack Post with the other hand and that one stuck fast, too.

“Turn me loose, before I kick the natural stuffing out of you,” says the A-List Blogger, says he, but the Attack Post jus’ sat there. Then the A-List Blogger jumped it with both his feet. Then the A-List Blogger yelled out that if that Attack Post didn’t turn him loose, he was going to butt it crank-sided. Then he butted it and his head got stuck.

The C-List Blogger walked out from behind the bushes and strolled over to the A-List Blogger, lookin’ innocent as a mockingbird.

“Howdy, A-List Blogger,” says the C-List Blogger, says he. “You look sort of stuck up this morning,” says he. And he rolled on the ground and laughed and laughed until he couldn’t laugh no more.

By and by he said, “Well, I expect I got you this time, A-List Blogger,” says he. “Look at all those comments agreeing with me about Attack Post, and all those inbound links to Attack Post, and how Attack Post got you all flabbergasted and brought you down a notch or two. You’ve been prancin’ ’round this old blogosphere a might long time, but now it’s the end. I’m goin’ to be the new A-List Blogger in this here brier patch.”

Then the A-List Blogger started talking mighty humble.

“I don’t care what you do with me, C-List Blogger,” says he, “Just so you don’t write a ‘NUTHER post about me. Roast me, hang me, leave me here stuck to this Attack Post — but please don’t write a ‘NUTHER post about me.”

Of course, the C-List Blogger wanted to get the A-List Blogger as bad as he could, so he caught him by the behind legs and slung him off the Attack Post so he could write a ‘NUTHER post about the A-List Blogger.

There was a considerable flutter when the A-List Blogger struck the bushes, and by and by the C-List Blogger heard someone call his name. Way up on Technorati Hill, he saw the A-Lister sitting cross-legged on a chinquapin log combin’ the remains of the Attack Post out of his hair with a chip. The C-Lister knew he had been tricked.

A-List Blogger hollered out, “Born with links, bred with links. I was born and bred with inbound links jus’ like the one you gave me!”

And with that he skipped out just as lively as a cricket in the embers of a fire.

A little less than a year ago, I decided to start a community Web site for people like me — as scary a thought as that is.

I figured that Media Orchard’s success (we peaked in the top 3,000 blogs on Technorati and for about a year averaged 1,200 unique visitors daily) had to mean that there was a broad appetite for the kind of stories that I was interested in. You know — a goofy assortment of news and commentary, filtered for the interests of creative types in media, marketing and PR.

It started out great — in fact, we reached 800 unique visitors daily within a few months, with steady growth — but frankly, at one year in, we haven’t been able to take it to the next level.

In case you’re wondering: I will not give up on this.

Here’s why:

About a year ago, after getting several of my posts on the home page of Fark and Digg and seeing traffic explode, I had a bit of an epiphany. I thought, Here I am, getting 100,000+ hits for a single post – and why?

Because it’s my best post? No — absolutely not. It’s because a single gatekeeper (in the case of Fark or Memeorandum) or a small online clique (in the case of Digg) said it is. I call Digg a clique, rather than an egalitarian community, because it is structured to heavily favor the submissions of a very small number of people. These people essentially call the shots for the site (and, in some cases, have collected money to post content.)

Although I love Fark and like both Digg and Memeorandum, the more I learned, the more I really didn’t like knowing how the sausage was made. I also didn’t like seeing all the ways my colleagues in the business were gaming the system. As someone who came from a print journalism background, the whole process seemed a little seedy to me — certainly far from a meritocracy.

So I thought, what if I could create a community site — for people with interests similar to mine — where submitters didn’t have to worry about being “greenlighted” or making the home page?

That’s why I created Spin Thicket.

We’ve hit a number of obstacles along the way that have been educational, such as:

• Managing Google, which like a light switch decided last spring to reclassify much Spin Thicket content to its supplemental index. We’ve been fighting our way back from that one ever since.

• Overcoming Technorati, which booted us from its index last spring also. I guess you could say that as an aggregator we deserved it — but at the time, Memeorandum, which has NO original content, was being indexed by Technorati, so I figured what the heck.

I don’t mind so much that these things have happened, because the experiences have helped me in counseling clients. I never intended to make money from the site, anyway — just to gather learnings that I could share with others. And that has certainly been the case.

I’ll be candid about something else. When you start a venture like this — as when you take most risks in life — you learn pretty quickly who your friends are. In blogging, there are people who genuinely like you and/or your blog, and there are others who just want to leverage your influence and/or traffic — and who would just as soon see you fail as succeed. There are even those who very much want you to fail.

That’s just human nature, I guess.

So with that being the state of things, it makes me all the more grateful for those of you who have supported Spin Thicket over the past year. You’ve kept our little site alive, and I really, really hope it’s been worth all your time and effort. I am forever grateful for your believing in the site, and when we are able to grow this site to the size it deserves to be, it will be entirely because of you that it happened.

I’d specifically like to say a huge thank-you to the following folks:

• Cam Beck
• Alice Marshall
• Geoff Livingston
• Sara Winters
• Eric Eggertson
• Richard Becker
• Bill Green
• Kevin Dugan
• Constantine von Hoffman
• Ike Pigott
• Gracie Passette
• Owen Lystrup
• Brian Solis
• Katie Laird

I’d also like to thank my wife, Cathy, and my brother, John.

Now, a promise — I plan to keep it going as long as you want me to. You have my word on that.

Update: I meant to also thank our friends at Pierce Mattie PR for including a Spin Thicket feed on their blog sidebar; we welcome others to do the same.