The blogging “A-List” - how much weight does it carry?
August 4, 2006 – 9:23 amby Darren
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The idea of an A-List is not an idea specific to the blogosphere. Actually, it’s a concept that’s been known for years. Making up a list of “cool people” has a few effects on crowds. Namely, people want to know who’s on the list, and other people want to be on the list. The nature of creating the list helps it gain prestige and enormous cache. But with something as ephemeral as “blogging celebrity”, can an A-List hold any weight at all?
Blogebrity’s A-List has some interesting names on it. They’re interesting in the sense that not only do I not know who they are, I can’t fathom how they achieved any level of success that would merit them being installed in the Pantheon of the Blogging Greats. I’m not picking on anyone, but let’s select a random name from the “A-List” column: Ouzounian, George (Maddox), whose name links to The Best Blog in the Universe, complete with the cheesy Che Guevera revolutionary iconic logo (or is it Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean”?). Whoa. Do you honestly mean to tell me that there’s a society of people who consider this blogger to be an “A-Lister”? This guy has it easy, he’s only posted 3 times the entire year!
I guess I could go further through the list, but after randomly landing on that one, why would I go further? I’m realizing every day that I’m not in touch with what people consider to be elite in the blogosphere. That’s okay. I’m sure the tastes are changing anyway, as blogging goes from a small clique to a much larger and more mainstream crowd. I’m sure every day there’ll be more people who think that Gawker sucks. People who don’t get the humor at “Gaping Void”. And people who need a little more proof than a random list to accept someone as a leader in a field. In other words, there’ll be more people just like me.
What do you think of the “A-List”? Do you care about it? Do you think these people should be on it? Speak out bloggers, or forever hold your piece.
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9 Responses to “The blogging “A-List” - how much weight does it carry?”
“What do you think of the “A-List”? Do you care about it? Do you think these people should be on it? Speak out bloggers, or forever hold your piece.”
I am a newbi and I have not applied there. I am not too much excited about this list anyway. However, some of the bloggers are really good- not all of them though. I am sure that after 1 year, either this list will have to undergo some major revisions or most people wont bother about it.
By Razib Ahmed on Aug 4, 2006
Razib, nice comment. I agree that this list in an un-revised format a year from now will be very useless.
I looked through some more of the links. I think we can beat these guys
By Darren on Aug 4, 2006
While I’ve not gone through the list, I should point out that Maddox’s site is actually *incredibly* well known, although a lot of it is residual from bygone years (it’s been around since 1997).
I’m really surprised you never heard of him, and I guess it’s understandable as he’s been far less active recently, but he is definitely a notable pioneer.
By Ryan Williams on Aug 4, 2006
Well, Maddox is well-known but not a huge traffic draw. His alexa rank is good though!
By Elliott Back on Aug 5, 2006
The “a list” have never really impressed me with what little i have seen of them. Some of them are a list because they were there first rather than any lasting contribution and others are best described as snobs
By Greg Kiernan on Aug 5, 2006
Well, as somebody who’s on the A-List (along with all my business partners and many of my friends) I can tell you that it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. You could walk up to the next thousand or ten thousand people you meet and ask them if they know about me or my companies and they’d obviously say no. In fact you could probably walk up to the next thousand or ten thousand people you meet and ask them if they know what a blog is and they’d probably say no. That’s how few people actually know about blogging.
Hell, the 2nd most popular site in America (MySpace) is only now known by any tangible percentage of the population. If you get ten thousand pageviews a day, or 50,000, or 2 million, you still aren’t famous or well-known in the entire scheme of things.
By Mike Rundle on Aug 9, 2006
Thanks for the comments, Mike. Glad to see an A-lister out here in the field, rubbing elbows with the common folk.
I completely agree with you. The average people aren’t up to speed on a lot of what’s going on. But it’s still nice for you to get recognition from your peers.
By Darren on Aug 9, 2006
Hey Darren, I’m definitely commonfolk too
Well unfortunately recognition from your peers is probably the last place you’d want recognition from, at least from my point of view. If there are 30 people in a small subset of an industry (say, blog network owners) and they continually write blog entries about the other ones and vice versa, you’re essentially cutting off your exposure to the rest of the 99.999% of the world’s population. Recognition from your peers is like a popularity contest, where if you get recognition from a person or a company that’s outside of your peer realm then you know you’re really reaching out and expanding your userbase.
By Mike Rundle on Aug 9, 2006
Mike, since you’re here and so accessible, hopefully I can encourage you to take part in my Blogger 6 Question Interview Series.
I’m sure you’d have some great tips for all A-List aspirants.
By Darren on Aug 10, 2006