Mili Meme Network
The Militant Meme Network (or MiliNetwork for short) is a loose network of websites, blogs, Facebook accounts and so forth who all generally accept the premise of Militant Libertarian. This is more than just a blogroll of sites, however, it is a network that operates in a modern-day version of the Committees of Correspondence and information dispersion that founders like Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and others used.
What is a “Meme”?
In today’s modern world, tech-heads (geeks, nerds, what have you) call a current news buzz that is created by several people talking about it at once a “meme.” These memes are the talk of the day, but are created rather than spontaneous. For instance, a current breakthrough in science is a buzz, since this creates random discourse about its happening or implications. On the other hand, the latest news release from Apple Computers can be covered by several news sites within a few hours, becoming a meme, since Apple obviously wanted the news to be spread in this way. In the same manner, the main stream media will endlessly cover useless news events, such as the latest happening with the Jackson family or Britney Spears’ recent faux pas. These are contrived news events meant to become a prevailing item, or a meme.
While Internet marketing gurus will call this “meme-ing” “going viral,” it’s still a created buzz or talking point. Something that has seen little use on the Web is this same idea being harnessed by the freedom/liberty movement.
We too can harness this and use it to our advantage. It’s being done, ad hoc, without any coordination already. Several freedom-oriented websites will cover the same story (or reprint it) in a matter of hours. Usually with breaking news from the same general sources: Alex Jones, Lew Rockwell, etc.
How SEO and Hat Tipping Works
What would be beneficial to all who are willing to participate is the idea of harnessing these memes to our advantage and at the same time cross-promoting one another, which builds linking and link-back status in search engines like Google.
On Militant Libertarian, you will often see articles ending with the citation “Hat Tip:” and a link to a website of the person who originally alerted me to the article itself, even if it sourced from another location. This “hat tipping” is telling readers who gave me the link to the article. It is also telling search engines that I have linked to a specific page on that site. This boosts the search engine optimization (SEO) of that site, if it isn’t done excessively – more so than linking to the site’s front page (i.e. http://www.MilitantLibertarian.org) itself, in fact.
Some of the sites for which I do this hat tipping are sites that I enjoy and want to promote regardless of whether they wish to return the favor. Others I have specifically approached and made agreements with to do this, ad hoc, for each other in order to help one another build our sites’ popularity. What I would like to do now is officially announce the MiliNetwork and build on it formally.
The Militant Meme Network
This network of sites is listed below and grows regularly. If you would like to participate, please see the next section below this list to find out how to join in. It’s easy, simple, and can be very powerful in building your site’s popularity and search engine rankings.
Current members of the MiliNetwork:
Joining the MiliNetwork
There are two ways to join the network. The first is to post or re-post an article from Militant Libertarian with a “Hat Tip” link back here. Then send an email, add a comment to the article in question, or otherwise contact me to tell me about your doings. I’ll add you to the list and begin monitoring your site for material to use here.
The other option is to just email me directly with your site address, Facebook account name, etc. so that we can link up.
In either case, I will let everyone in the current network know that you are on board and ad you to that list. Each person in the network is free to help out any of the others (or not), as they see fit. I will not police the network, but if someone does appear to be merely hanging on to take advantage, they may get removed from the list. I honestly don’t see this as being a problem.
Together, we can promote our websites, articles, contacts, and most importantly the freedom and liberty messages that bind us all together despite any other differences we might have.
If you have any questions about the Militant Meme Network, feel free to ask.
and Fire!
