Quality Indicators: Feed Buttons vs. Linking

There has been some discussion about the popularity Blogs being reliant upon the RSS feed buttons.

A site's popularity also depends on the number of other blogs linking to a specific blog which are then used to rank search results in tools like Technorati and Ice Rocket. When a site ranks high in these search tools the more apt a posting will be found and read, regardless if the reader subscribes.

In some ways it is nice to know that 50 people link to my personal blog using various RSS feeds, but the number of posts/sites linking to my blog is a better quality indicator.

The difference is similar to knowing how many times one of my journal articles is read vs. the number of other authors who cite my work. The later is the more important quality indicator from a scholarly perspective.