From a BetUS.com press release we somehow managed to miss a few weeks back:
Blogs are kind of a big deal. Everyone’s heard of them and many folks read them daily. Technorati.com (a blog search engine) says that there are over 37.3 million blogs in the blog universe (or blogosphere as it’s collectively known as). Technorati also ranks the top 100 blogs — the REAL kings of the internet jungle.
These guys get more hits, RSS subscriptions, pageviews, and links than the average Internet surfer can shake a mouse at!
Out of Technorati’s millions of tracked blogs, BetUS.com is taking bets on which blog will be #1 on their Top 100 list on New Years Eve.
Currently the BetUS “top contendors [sic]” list includes the obvious: BoingBoing (+200), Engadget (+250), DailyKos (+1000) and TechCrunch (+600); and a few longshots: including Scoble (+1200), Gawker (+1500), and Autoblog (+1200).
Those of you readying your bets — it bears noting that current Technorati #1 Xu Jinglei is nowhere to be found on their big board, which we’re guessing is deliberate. After all — it’s not like the folks at BetUS want you to get this right.
Put Your Money Where Your Blog Is [BetUS]
Look on the bright side Mike — at least they showcased your sexy gams.
Introducing Mike Arrington, the ninth Bastard of the Blogs [Those Bastards!]
Previously: Michael Arrington’s Nick Fury
Congratulations go out to Ms. Cox, and the entire Gawker family of writers — with trailblazers like Ana Marie leading the way, the future looks promising for you all.
ANA MARIE COX NAMED WASHINGTON EDITOR, TIME.COM [Poynter / Romenesko]
* Apologies. Even WE concede that portmanteau was a bit much. -Ed.
Ironic Sans, the site with the design that wistfully takes us back to 1987 and A-ha’s “Take On Me” video, has put together something we’ve been secretly hoping to see for a long time: a series of -ist (as in Gothamist) logos for fictitious cities like Bedrock, Delta City (extra points for the Robocop reference), Hill Valley, and Orbit City. It’s not the first Gothamist parody we’ve seen, but we’re sure it’s going to be a hit — fake logos are all the rage on the tubes these days.
A parallel istaverse [Ironic Sans]
via The Ists That Never Were [Gawker]
Arrington (left) and the Two NicksHoly smokes — after putting even the tech-obsessed to sleep for the better part of its entire run, the latest episode of Gillmor Gang (aka “Old White Dudes Talkin’ Tech”) finally got interesting.
It started with a seriously prolonged discussion of the upcoming TechCrunch party, during which Web 2.0 diva demigod Michael Arrington irritatedly pronounced that our own Editor Emeritus, Nick Douglas of Valleywag “is probably the one person in Silicon Valley who can’t get into this party.”
(Backstory — At the end of last week, Mike Arrington accidentally sent an email meant for a TechCrunch staffer to Nick Douglas at Valleywag. Nick, always thirsty for a tech-related story, ran the wrongly-addressed email verbatim, drawing the ire of his “friend” Mr. Arrington, despite Arrington’s own assertions that the email was a non-story.)
The heated TechCrunch party/Valleywag discussion died down, just as soon as Jason Calacanis got in his requisite 2-3 V’wag bashing comments, but the action didn’t stop there. Arrington went on to play the “him or me” card regarding Gillmor’s inclusion of Nick Carr in the podcast, who he was upset with for “being mean” (which we’re guessing wasn’t helped by a Carr comment referring to Arrington as “the madam of the great Web 2.0 brothel TechCrunch”). When Gillmor declined to ban Carr outright, Arrington turned in his resignation.
For all you Web 2.0heads, we know this must be hard news to take. After all, where on Earth will you be able to keep up with the reclusive Michael Arrington’s thoughts on technology?
Resignation Gang Part I [Gillmor Gang on PodShow]
TechCrunch August Capital Party [TechCrunch Wiki]
Secret e-mail reveals: Michael Arrington is in fact a pimp [Valleywag]
Why I resigned from Gillmor Gang [CrunchNotes]
A tip of the cap to Google Blogoscoped’s Philipp Lenssen for the new feature “Blog Surprise”, where he posts links to fresh first posts from NKOTBs (discovered via searches for first post on Google Blogsearch), then encourages his readers to visit their blogs and post comments welcoming them to blogging.
It’s no complimentary gift basket filled with decorative soaps and fresh baked cookies, but it beats the heck out of 50 V1AAGrA comment spams.
The Blog Surprise Game [Google Blogoscoped]
Diggism: when the leader of a company attempts to more closely associate his dated, older brand with the new hotness by creating an awkward new term repurposing the title of earlier press coverage and promoting it on his own blog.
JargonWatch: DiggScape [calacanis.com]
Former Gizmodo editor, Consumerist editor, and Executive Editor, Technology for Gawker Media, Joel Johnson has left Nick Denton’s blog publishing family for the second time in just over a year.
Johnson told Blogebrity on Tuesday that despite having a “lot of fun” in his most recent stint at Gawker, in the end he and the company “didn’t see eye to eye about [his] role,” but declined to go into further detail. He did, however, promise an announcement about his future plans/personal projects he’s working on an announcement “in the next couple of weeks.”
If you’ve got any insight into the juicy details of what Joel and Gawker didn’t “see eye to eye” over, you know where to reach us. And we’ll keep you posted on what’s next for Mr. Johnson.
Second Annual Gawker Media Bug Out [JoelJohnson.com]
Do you like Digg, but find the constant digging and updating of rankings just too slow for your ADD-addled brain? Well then you’re gonna love Swarm. It’s one of two new visualization tools (the other being Stack) from the newly-launched Digg Labs, Web 2.0’s newest ubersexy R&D facility.
After five minutes with the Swarm, we’ve got to hand it to Team Digg — their main site was already the closest thing to Internet cocaine, now they’ve added smack to the product offering.
The infojunkies are already lining up around the block. What’s the over-under on the founding of Diggers Anonymous?
UPDATE (3:15pm pt): If you’re trying to access the Swarm and/or Stack right now, you might experience some trouble — apparently even Digg isn’t impervious to the Digg effect.
A-lister, Lockergnome founder, and uberpodcaster Chris Pirillo is at it again. In the past few months alone, he’s hosted a Presidential candidate at his annual tech summit, updated and renamed his metasearch engine, and made all the blogosphere his comic strip.
Now he’s unveiled an update to one of his earlier projects, one that experts* believe may have been just ahead of its time. Say hello to the next big thing in web advertising — Rent My Chest 2.0:
No AJAX. No rounded corners. No venture capital. Just my bare chest! I know I’m not the hottest guy on Earth, but I believe that I have the perfect chest for your favorite word. So, if you would like to place a word on my chest, either select an unclaimed word between my nipples below or Suggest a word - what are you waiting for?
* We’re still working on tracking down one of these so-called experts. We’ll let you know when we do.
RentMyChest 2.0 [rentmychest.com]
You knew it was coming. The Great Stereogum Hacking of 2006 becomes a t-shirt, thanks to our old friend Malatron. Because nothing officially happens in hipsterdom until it’s been turned into a t-shirt and Flickrized.
INTERESTINGNESS: *SUFJAN password* Shirt [A Blog Soup]
Here’s a recap of the stuff we missed when we were too busy with Jason Calacanis, Stereogum hacking, new-look 9rules, Curt Schilling, and Ryan Adams:
Gawker and Yahoo got a divorce. Master of P.R. Nick Denton managed to hint at Yahoo being all scared of little ol’ Nick and Valleywag playing some part in the proceedings, but cmon — you really think Y! would have let V-wag stand between it and Gawker-generated revenue, had their been any? Regardless, the good news is the split is amicable, and the custody battle over Krucoff is expected to remain mostly civil. Mostly.
If you were hiding in a hole this week, you probably missed Kevin Smith’s MySpace diatribe directed at film critic Joel Siegel. If you’re smart, you’ll stay in that same hole until Clerks 2 has left theatres.
Steve Jobs started blogging. Well, not really…but this is far more entertaining than what the real thing would be, so just go with it.
Have you heard of the 1% rule yet? Think of it like the interesting but kinda kooky uncle of The Long Tail. Just don’t ask us what that means.
And finally, Deadspin’s Will Leitch proves that he’s the most talented member of the Gawker Media stable.
Slightly belated congratulations go out to Jason Calacanis, who managed to break Rocketboom’s fortnight-long chokehold on blog chatter this week with his indecent proposal to Digg, Reddit, Newsvine and Flickr powerusers — $1,000 a month to keep doing what they’re doing on the recently-relaunched Netscape.com.
Not only did Calacanis manage to get people to talk at length about something other than Amanda and Andrew, as of this morning, Calacanis claims the initiative has been quite fruitful:
Well over 50 folks from social bookmarking sites have emailed me already. Many of them are in the top 10-20 on the major services. So, while the elite Web 2.0 mafia may not like the concept of paying top contributors, the contributors certainly like the idea!
We don’t want to jump the gun (or disagree with Web 2.0 overlord Michael Arrington), but Calacanis might just be on to something. Crazy as it sounds, some people out there really DO like earning real cash, and not just Web 2.0 karma points and/or Flooz. Best of all (for Jason), if this all catches on, he gets to paint himself as a hero to many, akin to the union leaders of the 20th century — fighting for the hard-working geek masses, helping them earn a decent day’s pay for their time on the content assembly line.
Of course, the fact that Jason is doing this now–after Netscape has been live for a month–does reek of desperation just a bit, as Arrington pointed out. But when was the last time that smell WASN’T eminating from AOL?
Why the Web 2.0 and media elite are so upset about paying amateurs (or “I’m sorry, does Mike Arrington work for free?”) [Calacanis.com]
Huge Red Flag at Netscape [TechCrunch]
Paying the top DIGG/REDDIT/Flickr/Newsvine users (or “$1,000 a month for doing what you’re already doing.”) [Calacanis.com]
The Calacanis Circus [bLaugh]
On the East Coast, Scott Lapatine and Stereogum get pwned. Out here on the left coast, Nick’s got a 5-alarm headache after getting mugged last night.
If you’re an A-lister, you might just want to stay inside the rest of the day (a challenge, we’re sure).
