Can We Stop with the A,B,Cs Already?

In a cover story that will surely generate tons of conversation and alienate lots of bloggers (now there's a way to sell print mags), New York Magazine crunches the numbers that make the blogosphere tick. They analyzed both bloggers who were successful and unuccessful in their attempts to build an audience. In fact, the piece is so controversial that both Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis refused to be interviewed. Shock the nation!

The article cites a Clay Shirky analysis of 433 blogs. He found that there are enormous “inequities” in the blogosphere - a power-law curve. In other words, according to Shirky a very small number of blogs enjoy hundreds and hundreds of inbound links and almost all others have very few sites pointing to them.

New York Mag also discovered three blog success “formulas”: accidental tourists (those who stumbled into blogging), blog networks, boutique bloggers that find a niche and stick with it. Last but not least they note that this whole subject is a major hot-potato with bloggers. Lord knows, I have discovered this the hard way. However, it taught me a lot and changed my thinking. We all are important - always.

The fact is that one reason this so-called inequity is covered ad infinitum is because marketers and media (bloggers included) still rely on old-school approaches to measuring the impact of this new medium. We're trained as humans to look for the biggest apes in the jungle. However, that's not how this Cluetrain world always works.

First of all there are bloggers that can come out of nowhere and join the so-called elite group of top-ranked bloggers. Look at TechCrunch. It is rapidly rising up the charts.

Second, a blogger with two readers can become a reader with thousands in an instant and then fall back down to zero and then back to thousands again two months from now - or never again. Does that mean he/she is unimportant? Not.

Finally, this so-called A-list changes constantly. Go back to 2002 and look at the list of top blogs. Many of these are no longer on the list. Does this mean they failed? Hogwash. We all live in the same yellow submarine and that's the Court of Google - our judge and jury.

So, here's a secret. The list doesn't matter. It's like a Billboard Top 100. Tomorrow we won't be singing Bill Halley's Rock Around the Clock. So, can we all stop with the A,B,C's and move on or is too much at stake financially? We are bloggers, hear us roar. We all matter - today and always.  End of story. E pluribus unum.

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Comments

[David Parmet]

You'll always be on MY a-list Steve!

[Jeremy Pepper]

Steve, the proof in your new found realization will be in your future writings. So far, it doesn't show up in your blog posts.

For a long time now, if there is anyone that wraps himself in a supposed A-list, it's you. Over the past few weeks in your blog, I would be hardpressed to point where you have changed your thinking on anything, particularly the hierarchy of bloggers.

You wrote what was essentially a 'caste system' definition for bloggers on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 in "Finding a Path to Blog PR Bliss". Are you recanting that?

You want to have your cake and eat it too, but you are slowly realizing that's impossible.

Steve, do a test on some of your suggestions to bloggers. You told people to drop their blogrolls. How about they just drop their Micropersuasion links - for a week? Let's see how the old Technorati numbers hold up then. And, let's see how you feel about it then.

And, well, are just upset you aren't in the article? How dare a NY magazine ignore the top blogger in the city!

Oh, wait, it's about the clients, not about yourself. That's who would have been interesting to see in the article: Topix.net, or even past clients like PubSub.

[Nick Douglas]

Yeah, Steve, I was underwhelmed. And kinda misquoted.

Anyway, isn't anyone noticing the "met in real life" factor?

[Shel Holtz]

I've stopped paying attention to mainstream media articles like this. They'll continue to dismiss the blogosphere. The blogosphere will continue to expand (every 5.5 months) and wield influence. Yawn. Who cares anymore what the likes of Forbes or New York think?

[J. Jeffryes]

This is what ultra-capitalism looks like. The barriers to entry are practically nil, and everything is truly based on effort, talent and luck. If you put in a huge amount of effort, and write good material, and get lucky, you will eventually rise to the top. People love to be the first to find the blog no one else reads yet, and post a link on their own blog. Be that blog enough times, and keep people coming with excellent posts, and you'll be on the A-List eventually. Until the talent, the effort, or the luck goes away.

[jJ]

The conversation is both highly relevant and completely irrelevant. To be sure, there is a community within a community (for example, those that attend blogging related conferences) and then there is the rest of the blogosphere and then there is the rest of the world.

Perception is reality. Someone's A-lister is another's geek patrol.

My focus is just getting on with it and focusing on my content; my community; and yes, even sponsorship (which is part of my business model)

There is one massive irony...without your post Steve, I would not have even known (or cared) about the article of the week)

These articles can keep on coming...but the blogosphere will keep on growing and an increasing number of people will be caught with their pants down. It's the EXACT same thing that happened after the dot com crash...

[Javier]

Regarding advertising, I see far more important the quality of the viewers of a blog and their potential income and purchasing decisions rather than sheer numbers.
Regarding popularity and authority, let´s remember that some people are not inclined by nature to link to the best blogs/sites they know. They keep them for themselves because the information there is too good to share.
regards
http://niquel757.blogspot.com

[Mike Driehorst]

Regarding Shel Holtz's comment (any relation to Lou?): "Who cares anymore what the likes of Forbes or New York think?"

All bloggers should take possession of the blogosphere -- esp. those in communications -- and treat it like a client. Since the vast majority of American don't blog or read blogs, and still a majority of those online don't visit blogs, we should care.

We should be aware of stories like these, and, as appropriate, participate in them. We should also point out the biases and other false assumptions made.

As stories like these continue in major consumer and business press, people will be less likely to blog for fear of being attacked if they make a mistake.

Because the fiscal and technological barriers to entry are relatively small, we don't want the psychological barrier to be huge.

Mike

[bob]

What the article does is impose the traditional media's success metric on personal publishing. I'm sure there are lots of bloggers that look at success that way. The top-of-the-power-curve bloggers aren't much different than mainstream media.

On the other hand, blogging can also be all about you and the five folks that read your blog, and the five people that nobody heard of that you read. I think there's more potential in the latter -- the Long Tail of blogging.

[scott]

Steve: Interesting discussion. I like the sentiment you've expressed, but the reality is that the hierarchy is important to everyone (or almost everyone), whether they admit it or not. Personally, while the New York article had an outsider's take on the blogosphere, I thought it was thought-provoking. I recommend the article to everyone.

Jeremy: Steve backed off the caste-system thing in a subsequent post, remember?

[Tish Grier]

Great entry Steve! So nice to read someone who's on the "A-list" add a needed perspective to NYMag's skewed view. When I looked at how many "A-listers" linked to some of my posts over the past six months (incl. you on a piece I did on Blake Rhodes) I realized that you don't have to be a marquee name raking in big bucks to be on an A-list somewhere. Besides, to paraphrase something Susan Mernit said to me in an email, blogging's not really about the noteriety, but about the really smart and knowledgable people one can meet. That says it all for me! Would have been nice if the NYMag article wrote more about the people than the dollars.