The A-list blogs rule -- or do they?

News Type: Event — Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:35 PM EST

technology, web, marketing, opinion, blogs, publishing, new-media

Despite being down with the flu today, I happened across the article in New York Magazine titled Blogs to Riches: The Haves and Have-Notes of the Blogging Boom. It's a terrific article explaining the network effects that drive the A-list, B-list, and C-list blogging phenomenon, and why, in this most democratic of journalistic media, hierarchies have developed. It also notes (as I did last week) the tyranny of too much problem that the A-list bloggers face when every blogger and their brothers ping them for links to their latest products or stories.

But what I found most insightful was this comment at the end:

"The good news is that it's still possible to create a top-ranked blog," says Shirky. "The bad news is, the way to get into the top ten now seems to be public relations." Just posting witty entries and hoping for traffic won't do it. You have to actively seek out attention from the press. "That's how they're jump-starting the links structure. It's not organic." Indeed, when Huffington announced her venture and her celebrity guests, bloggers grumbled that it weirdly inverted the whole grassroots appeal of blogs. Larry David and Danielle Crittenden are hardly what you'd call outsiders to mass media.

But at the same time, the article notes that the long-tail argument -- namely the fact that the audience for C-list blogs actually exceeds the audience for the A-list -- means that C-list blogs aren't doomed to obscurity and failure; they simply need to occupy niches that people care about. Find advertisers that want to target those niches, and you've got yourself a business, since targeted advertising is more efficient than broad exposure. And if you keep ads on your archived content, you may end up making more money off your archives that the A-list pages!

The bottom line: marketing a blog is like marketing a magazine or newspaper -- except when it isn't. Yes, there's an A-list, but even the C-list can thrive and make money. Successful blogs will target a specific audience with regular great content and some smart business thinking about that audience. Everything else is just details.

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{"commentId":30604,"authorDomain":"ubertech"}

ubertech

so your saying "obscurity and failure" is bad?
interesting...

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#1 - Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:09 PM EST

{"commentId":30636,"authorDomain":"mfg"}

Adam Ballah

Interesting piece. I've recently removed Google Adsense and stopped looking at my stats, okay, I admit it, they were nothing to boast about ;), but also I found that I wasn't enjoying it anymore. It depends on why you get into blogging or writing or anythings else for that matter. Perhaps, unless you're very good, if you get into blogging just to make money, that fact, more than anything else is what reflects in the writing you do. Personally I don't find most of the big blogs all that interesting, and have a variety of niche blogs bookmarked.

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#2 - Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:58 PM EST

{"commentId":30711,"authorDomain":"smaran"}

Smaran

Yes, I agree with Adam. I don't mind those massively popular blogs very great either. Techcrunch for example is nice, but very plastic coated. Like Desperate Housewives. I'm not into that, I like Arrested Develoopment. That's natural and fun.
Blogs, according to me are basically more personal, targeted magazines. Personal magazines. I dunno if this fits here, but I would say, written by the people for the people. On my blog, I like to get into a bit of philosophy and question things, I still haven't found many other blogs like mine that I like, but a couple for sure. I wish there were some cool blog directory, like an iTunes for blogs.
About The Long Tail thing, I'm still not sure, whether it will fully work. There needs to be a way for me to discover my niche. I know it's out there, but I can't find it yet. I know it's already happening in music, with a lot of mainstream music (Madonna's CODF for example) getting pushed aside for better stuff like The Arctic Monkeys, bill and Valley Lodge. Two of those are podsafe bands and now immensely popular.
With movies and radio, well podcasting has basically facilitated the long tail there. I spend much more of my time these days watching Amanda on Rocketboom than Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond. It's a revolution and I love it.
Having said that, I must also clarify, that all A-List and mainstream media isn't just popular because of the hype. U2 is genuinely good. just like Coldplay, Kanye West and Alicia Keys. (my tastes)

Keep writing Carl, you write well and you're on my watch list.

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#3 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 1:23 AM EST

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gusto

Interesting article. The sentence in the final paragraph says it all, really: "[It all] boils down to who has the best content".

Sure, PR is useful in attracting traffic, but without compelling content you won't get any return visitors and your PR efforts are wasted.

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#4 - Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:12 PM EST

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CARL HOWE

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The A-list blogs rule -- or do they?

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