If you’re interested in the whole A-list debate, and I’m mostly not, but it’s like a train wreck (you know you shouldn’t look but you just can’t help it), you can find more chatter – some civil, some not so much – all over the place. Mostly set off by the New York article this week.
Now, why we expect the blogosphere to be any different than society at large, I do not know. We have social and business strata in the real world; it is inevitable in the blogosphere as well. Technology changes. Human nature doesn’t. An A-list is inevitable, ephemeral and it is damn hard work to get and stay on “it.” Not to mention the big bullseye on your back once you get there.
Some A-list blogs are great. And on the other hand, some of the best blogging is being done in the long tail, not in the Technorati 100. That is just the way it is.
Now, some things still piss me off from time to time. Not the fact of an A-list or the concerns of those in the long tail — but the attitudes that occasionally go along with BOTH. So I can’t promise to never talk about it again, but not right now.
Because as Vamp!Willow said in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Bored now.”
But if you’re not, and want to watch the train wreck, here are some blogs to check out. Links are to posts on the blogs related to the topic.
Beyond Madison Avenue
Blogging for Business
gapingvoid, Two posts of interest here and here
Seth Finkelstein, InfoThought
Media Orchard (while we are at it, kudos to Scott Baradell for having the right idea about Dr. Myra from the get-go. More another day on why more bloggers didn’t “join the charge.”)
Micro Persuasion
Naked Conversations
Newsome.org – multiple posts in the last few days Just check out his blog, it is pretty good!
Scobleizer
For my part, I just try to write an interesting blog that I and my readers will enjoy. Some days I hit it, some I don’t. I couldn’t tell you exactly how many readers I have, because I don’t track it obsessively. But I do know they are some of the greatest people I’ve ever “met” from the great comments and trackbacks I’ve had over the 15 or so months I’ve been blogging.
Marketing 101: it isn’t about reaching the MOST people. It’s about reaching the RIGHT people.
Think about that.
Hey Susan, long time, no interact.
Actually, substantial discussion preceded that _New York_ article. Different causes.
There’s a lot of techno-utopians, so the evangelism is frustrating to Z-listers like me. It’s a constant stream of “Let them eat cake” and “I’ve got mine”.
You’re a marketing person, so you get value from marketing yourself. I’m a programmer and (ex-)activist, so I don’t get that sort of value, in fact, it’s arguably negative.
Hi Seth.
Thanks for the comment. I know this A-list debate has been going on for a while, in various venues. It seems on this issue, we are more or less in agreement — unlike the last time we corresponded :-). Personally, I find the whole concept of the A-list abhorrent, but unfortunately, inevitable due to some of the same psycho-social forces I find repugnant in the “real world.”
I am perturbed that when an A-lister rails against the existence of an A-list, it has the air of noblesse oblige, but when someone not in the stratosphere criticizes the concept or even worse, someone on the A-list, it is often classed as whining and complaining. Double standard? Yes, and human nature combined with self preservation, among other social forces. Once you reach the mountaintop, you want to stay there, and will do whatever it takes to defend your position. It can get ugly.
And I just don’t have time for ugliness in my life. So I do my best to let it go.
As Meryl Streep once said, “Life is like high school.”
I’m with you. I blog to get and give value in terms of information and connections to people who know their stuff (marketing, techy, political, and otherwise.) And, it indirectly helps me market my services, but I don’t expect the blog in and of itself to generate major revenues.
All the rest of it, train wreck and all, seems to be like we’re spending wayyyy too much time gazing at our own navels and analyzing the lint.
Is the Internet doomed?
While some are obsessing about the bloggers A-List (Personally, I agree with Susan Getgood, Bored now.) the freedom of the Internet is under attack; and, unlike the supposed attack on Christmas, this threat i…
Like you I don’t follow the argument all that closely but my feeling is that CEO’s of broadband would be well advised not to wake a sleeping giant: aka: the U.S. legislators.
Don’t you think that once regulation starts it will most likely continue; it’s like breaking a seal. If Congress puts in time, they’ll probably want their cut: watch for federal internet tax and cable phone regulation.