callivert - 12:45 pm on Sep 30, 2007 (gmt 0)

The total amount of information online continues to grow at a rapid pace. Mediocre information is cheap to produce in vast quantities, whether it's text generators, or student workers, or scanned out-of-copyright books.
The problem then becomes: how do you market your site and your content, and enable it to rise above the oceans of content?
Here are some possible strategies:

1) Become part of networks of excellence. If you become part of a "sub-net" of quality sites that interlink, you can gain traction. This requires being noticed by people who have high quality content as well, and who also have an established presence.

2) old money. Buy into an established presence, such as an existing site.

3) big is better. if you have a massive site, it seems that the law of gravity kicks in: traffic falls towards large objects.

4) become a spammer. Produce as much trash as you can, with as many inbound links as you can.

I wonder if, ironically, vast amounts of mediocrity may lift the overall quality of the visible web.