Aug

16

Nick Carr - To Troll, or Not to Troll?

August 16, 2006 |

I avoid blogging about blogging as much as I can, but the discussion Nick Carr unleashed upon us today (see Techmeme for all the comments) cries for a comment.

Here is a snipped of his post, The Great Unread:

What we tell ourselves about the blogosphere - that it’s open and democratic and egalitarian, that it stands in contrast and in opposition to the controlled and controlling mass media - is an innocent fraud.

I hate to say it, but I think he is quite right. Dave Winer likes to say that if there really were an A-list, the blogosphere would route around them. But do we really have to argue about the fact that there is an A-list of bloggers? Of course there is. Just look at your aggregator. Chances are, if you are looking at it, you have Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Michael Arrington, Guy Kawasaki, Doc Searls, Steve Gillmor and Om Malik in there.

Those people command a lot of traffic and attention. Look at Techmeme on any given day. These are the people who get the conversation going, even when they just link to somebody who had the original idea.

However, you probably also have another hundred feeds in there that are only shared within a small community and so you say that there really is no A-list, yet their traffic is not even close to the traffic Scoble can direct.

A vintage, 1960s Troll doll dressed as Santa.And in the end, that’s what the A-list is all about: directing traffic. They are the traffic cops of the blogosphere and they are not as easily replaced as some would like to make us believe. They are brand names and we tend to trust them, even if they let us down sometimes.

Yet, is that really such a horrible thing? Does anybody really think it is possible to just go ahead and keep on top of everything going on in the blogosphere? Don’t we all crave for a trusted voice to point us in the right direction the way newspaper editors used to do?

And by the way, for those bloggers who are not getting a lot of traffic, read Dave Winer’s post on the difference between reading and comprehending to get you through these dark days. He is spot on (and I say that as a blogger and writing teacher).

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2 Comments so far

  1. Michael Markman on August 18, 2006 8:01 am

    You are on to something. Given the (still) exponential growth of the blogosphere, it can’t help but be something of a pyramid scheme. The tail gets longer and longer. What’s out there? Who’s out there? How can I find out? I’m not sure that traffic cop is the best metaphor. Better to look at the roles identified by Malcom Gladwell in The Tipping Point. I think what some call A-listers are just very good Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.

  2. Rod on August 18, 2006 10:54 am

    I feel your pain…

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