Feifdom and a Return to Gatekeepers discussion

Nick Carr opened up the proverbial can of worms yesterday.  His post, “The Great Unread“, has brought scorn down upon him from the likes of Calacanis and Arrington.  In his post, Nick compares the blogosphere to a island kingdom with a “great castle built of stone” at it’s center.

Guess who lives inside the castle.  That’s right ladies and gentlemen.  I’d like to welcome to the stage the A-listers, the gatekeepers, the blog media elite…  I could go on with the names that the’ve been called.  Nick gets called an asshole by Mike Arrington.  Inferentialy anyways.  Calacanis tells him to “stop crying about it and post something interesting.”

There are, however, some who happen to agree with Nick.  Rob Hyndman for instance.  Kent Newsome for another. You can add me to that list as well.

Let me begin by saying that I also think that Mike Arrington has it backwards.  In his post, Mike tries to defend his position, but as I think I’ll show, he fails.

The “biggest” blogs have changed dramatically over the last year since I started writing. Guys that commanded large audiences have fallen, new people have risen. Sure, there are massive politics and games involved, and a lot of mud gets thrown about.

Last I checked, one of the “biggest” blogs is boing boing.  And it’s been there for as long as Mike has been writing on techcrunch.  It’s also of interest to me that he uses the “new people have risen” defense.  Especially considering he’s one of those new people.  And then he goes on to throw his whole thesis out of the water when he admits to the politics and games.  When’s the next TechCrunch party Mike?

Mike continues:

Many tools have been created to even the playing field. Digg is the most important one. With Digg, a group of 20 people, bloggers or not, are far more powerful than any single blogger. Those 20 people can (and do) get the content of their choice in front of tens of thousands of people. Blog search engines, TechMeme and other services further the democratization of the blogosphere.

Well, lets see.  Digg is accusing AOL of gaming the voting system.  And the only other one named by name, TechMeme, is an exclusive club.  The only way to get listed on TechMeme is if a lot of the already included people in TechMeme start linking to you.  Sounds an awful lot like that Castle has it’s gate.

What I love about blogging is the fact that an ecosystem exists […]

Blogging is not about the individual. It’s about the power of the blogosphere as an entity.

Hmm…  Look’s a little like Karl Marx was here.

Stop defending the Feifdom.  The blogosphere is not a two way conversation in about 80% of the community.  The A-listers sit upon their throne in the castle and link amongst themselves because that’s how you get around the “politics and games”.  Not all of us are equipped to play along with those same politics and games.  And before you ask, it isn’t because we don’t have the talent.  Many of us are location challenged and can’t attend every get Mike Arrington rich TechCrunch party.

Sadly, the only way to gain any limelight is to do like Nick Carr did and blatently point out the obvious or to play the politics and games.

Now, talk amongst yourselves.  I’m headed back out to the fields with Kent.

Technorati Tags: feifdom, gatekeeper, gatekeepers, a-list, nick carr, techcrunch, mike arrington, kent newsome, jason calacanis, techmeme, digg