Blog Millionaire Teaches How Not To Be An A-lister
Jason Calacanis, the blogger who founded the dozens-strong Weblogs Inc. network, just gave the world a horrible plan for becoming an A-list blogger.
While rebutting a lame claim that “blue-collar bloggers” can’t profit from their blogs without whoring out to paid review services like PayPerPost, Jason claims anyone could become an A-lister in three months. Step two on that get-big-quick scheme is “Go to 2-3 events or conferences a week.” Now that is a classist insult on the level of “let them eat cake.” That kind of event schedule is for power networkers, not good bloggers. Step four is basically “write about tech.” Actually, that’s a way to get ignored by the tech crowd and make everyone else scared or bored.
Look, some of the top “A-listers” that everyone reads are the four writers at Boing Boing. They have their own lives, write about anything they want, and when they cover tech it’s on their own terms. And they get over ten times the traffic that media critic and supposed A-list blogger Jeff Jarvis gets. They also dwarf former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble, who now only gets attention when he complains about not getting attention.
Who are the hottest videobloggers? Are they tech pundits discussing Intel and gadgets on the Podtech network with Calacanis and Scoble? No, they’re a ninja advice columnist and a comedian with a duck fetish.
In other words, what Calacanis calls the A-list is really the C-list. Why does he delude himself? Maybe because he’s part of that C-list; maybe because his vision really is that small. Or maybe Calacanis wants the whole world of blogging to be reduced to bitter little men arguing about the future of RSS and HD-TV.
Photo: Rex Hammock
This entry was posted by Nick Douglas on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 1:55 am and is filed under Jason Calacanis, PayPerPost. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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on March 18, 2007 at 8:21 am Kyle Bunch wrote:
Yeah, I think you touch on an important distinction — having a A-list blog (i.e. lots of traffic, huge surpluses of inbound links) and living an A-list lifestyle (i.e. selling your company for millions, going to all the conferences, getting to meet all sorts of big “names”).
I will agree with Calacanis whole-heartedly on one point — this is obviously just a lame attempt to turn the PayPerPost thing into some sort of “working man’s” struggle, when sadly, these folks miss his ultimate point — if something like PayPerPost thrives, it threatens to ruin the entrepreneurial opportunities that blogging creates for EVERYONE. If blogging becomes synonymous with “people getting paid to write about stuff”, the perceived authenticity and passion dwindles, and with it, so does the audience.
As bloggers, we deal with enough stigma, as geeks, as “navel-gazers” — the last thing we need is to add shill/whore to that list.
Speaking with Henry Copeland at Blogads in depth, and witnessing many of the Adsense success stories, I do believe that 2-3 months of hard (but smart) work can pay off in ad revenues, without having to whore out your posting to paid placements.
But you’re right Nick — the 2-3 conferences/events a week part is a tad ridiculous, and if it was really true would only further the point that Henry made at SXSW, that “A-list” status is reserved to those who live on the coasts, where there’s actually enough events to fill out that dance card.
on March 18, 2007 at 6:13 pm Ben Gold wrote:
The truth is if you want to become an “A-List” blogger it can be way simple than any of that bullshit and it’s guaranteed to work, unlike his plan. All you have to do is write well, often and be knowledgeable about your subject.
Look at the top bloggers. The Writers at Boing Boing know how to write, like Cory Doctorow is a published author, granted “journalism” is slightly different, but still. Look at Engadget. It has about 40 posts a day, and all the writers know what they are talking about, and all of them know how to write.
Another good way to be a top blogger is to get lots of exclusives, that’s why tech blogs are some of the most popular, it’s something with a large fan base but not a lot of regular (IE. TV and Weekly magazines) news outlets for it. so the blogs can get the exclusives before it’s on tv or in a magazine, the same can’t be said about things like sports or political coverage.
You don’t need to cheat your way into becoming popular, there’s no formula. Just be good at what you do and you’ll gain respect.
on March 18, 2007 at 7:06 pm Pay Per Post -- is it all about quality? « Likelihood of Success wrote:
[...] don’t agree (and I’m not alone). I do think he’s right in the rest of his comments — that quality ultimately will [...]
on March 23, 2007 at 8:20 am Akkam’s Razor wrote:
[...] Blogebrity: “blue-collar bloggers” can’t profit from their blogs without whoring… “Look, some of the top “A-listers” that everyone reads are the four writers at Boing Boing. They have their own lives, write about anything they want, and when they cover tech it’s on their own terms. And they get over ten times the traffic that med (tags: blog writing) [...]