Jeremy ranted about A-listers yesterday and while I have no intention of rehashing his well executed rant, I do plan to expound on that.
There is a problem that exists and it represents a huge disproportion of the blogosphere. It actually represents much of life but that doesn’t make it right. Basically, if you take readership and traffic and place it on the y-axis of a chart, and then you run the top million blogs in order on the x-axis and chart readership per blog, you’ll find an interesting graph that shows the top 1% or so getting 99% of the blog traffic with the bottom 99% recieving 1 % of the traffic (roughly). By the way, the same chart applies to income levels and population.
What these charts should tell us is that the blogosphere is skewed. Most people only know the blogosphere for Andrew Sullivam, the Daily Kos and Engadget. But there’s so much more in its depths.
One of Jeremy’s commenters, Eric Eggerston had this to say:
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with trying to get the attention of potential readers. It’s when it becomes more important than the content of your blog that you should recognize the probem and get help. :-)
And Eric gets the prize! Blogging is an art. It’s an easy aert if you take it from me, but it’s an art. It’s about wordsmithing and creative thought process. It’s about the human interaction that comes.
Traffic is an important part of the growth of a blog. If there is no growth in traffic then the circle of influence for the blog is constrained. However, there is also a point of no return where greed overcomes the man and he is no long the writer of a blog but the blog is the writer of him.
Who controls it? Everyday self-imposed post requirements, time committments and even the selling out of quality and freedom in exchange for favor from the contextual advertisers gods such as Adsense.
Of course, A-listers can’t see the forest through the trees. They think it is all in good fun while they sit and become more and more irrelevant. The path that they have taken to gain notoriety will find them off the path and without a flashlight if they aren’t careful.
It’s a god. Popularity is a god. Traffic is a god. To me, being true to self is more important than sponsorship deals, than $100/wk ad sales and to face time on CNN.
Thoughts?
Stumble it!
About the Author: Aaron Brazell is the lead editor of Technosailor.com and a social media expert. His passion is to see companies and individuals use the internet and web technologies wisely and effectively to promote their brands and companies. He is Business Development Manager for Lijit and he worked as Director of Technology at b5media from 2005-2008 and is currently an independent consultant.
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I say that simply because some of those people become media celebs, have book deals, and their appointment books get so filled with so many other tasks that they cease to focus on their blogs, and work on the things which thrust them into the spotlight and create revenue streams in other avenues.
I used Hugh Hewitt as a prime example.
He is a small exception to the norm of a daily blogger down in the rank and file, but, you notice that his situation is not unique to the "A-Listers".
Not to say there is anything wrong with capitalizing on fame, but when do you cease to be a blogger at that point and cross over to MSM Journalist?
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After a period of laying low, I'm actually trying to be a bit more self-promotional these days. Hey, I write about public relations, so self-promotion is a natural extension...
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