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Add this blog to your Technorati Favorites. No go on, add it! You see, if only a fraction of Mashable readers voted, we'd get to the top of that list. And therein lies the Achilles heel of Technorati Favorites...
For instance, we received a mail a few hours ago about FavoriteMe, a site on a UK domain that provides an "automated Technorati Favorites Exchange". This removes the uncertainty about whether others will return your swap, since you must return favors via the points system. The site uses the Technorati API to verify that. It's a smart idea from the developer, who's only creating a free market for something that's apparently already going on, but inevitably Technorati will crack down on this just like they cracked down on the Technorati link exchanges - it undermines the system as a whole.
In truth, Technorati Favorites probably don't exist for the benefit of visitors at all: I'm guessing they were created by Technorati to drive more traffic to the site from blogs: just like people post "Digg This" buttons to their sites, Technorati could boost traffic and search rankings by incentivizing lots of blogs (especially top blogs) to link to the site. Likewise, the ability to post Technorati tags on blogs is largely to boost the search rankings of Technorati, rather than help users.
Because Technorati is mainly interested in driving traffic to the site, there's no real motivation to crack down on minor gaming attempts. But Technorati does care a lot about its reputation, and I expect Dave Sifry will now move to prevent an uprising.
Seriously, add this blog to your Technorati Favorites or a puppy will die. ;)