This might be the one blog post that will single-handedly piss off anyone and everyone.
What is blogpimping? This is a pretty accurate description by Mark Cuban. It involves all of the pinging, digging, commenting we see on blogs to get linkbacks and gain relevance online. I disagree with a lot of what Mark says and does in general. At the risk of sounding heretic, his most brilliant move was straddling Yahoo! stock after he sold Broadcast.com, had he not, he would be a footnote in the businessworld lore. But thanks to that foresight, he is an icon. He deserves props for that. But it’s a tad hypocritical in light of the fact the he is guilty of the same thing - he admits to it at least - but why else would he post a comment about Google/YouTube’s legal woes that he says “is unfounded but rings true…”
Anyway, one thing I disagree in the post is his criticism of “people write about what is in the news to get traffic.” That is akin to criticizing newspapers or websites that have editorial calendars to time stories with holidays, anniversaries etc. Forget the calendar, just look at news! When Britney divorves K-Fed, all portals add links to stories they have on her. Yesterday, 60 Minutes’ Ed Bradley died, and WebMD ran a front page story on Leukemia. At first I thought it was sheepish, but then I said: “well, it makes sense… they’re job is to inform.” In fact, we did the same thing, sort of.
Like I said, we’re all hypocrites. But that’s called publishing, no?
It does not end there, because everyone in this space has the Alexa toolbar, bloggers in general and blog-pimpers in particular skew traffic numbers and give many sites that have relatively little real traffic a much greater sense of grandeur on the Web.
Example: I doubt Digg is really the 86th largest site in the world! It’s a great tool, but 86th largest site it’s not.
I’ve been meaning to write about the average blogger vs. newspaper journalist dichotomy but there was no way that people’s egos would not get bruised. Living in a city other than NYC or SF is great cause a lot of the hype / nonsense does not affect you.
Anyway, here goes: when I came across the war of words between Nick Carr and Mike Arrington, I initially did not know who was who. I found out about Nick Carr when he linked to a post I wrote on YouTube or Wikipedia some time ago. I had come across Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch a couple of months ago but had no clue what the site was about or how influential it was. In case you don’t either, Tech Crunch is one of the most influential sites out there and Michael Arrington is the man of the hour in the Web 2.0 blog space. Any single individual who can attract an audience in this cluttered space deserves credit. But that being said…
I am certainly not picking sides in their little diatribe, but their little exercise in insanity perfectly highlights the blogger/traditional writer dichotomy.
Looking at the greater dichotomy (in other words, the following does not describe Carr or Arrington, bu rather what they represent at large):
The former will run an open blog whereby anyone can link to, comment, pingback, digg, etc. and as a result will get some added traffic and feel relevant online. The blog runs on Wordpress or Six Apart and is optimized for traffic flows to the tilt.
The latter will probably not have open comments or most of the bells and whistles that come with blogpimping, especially if it’s a blog on the website of the newspaper he writes for. Essentially, he writes in what is the equivalent of the tree that fell in the forest landscape, even though - quality aside - he is a far more reputable writer and isn’t a newbie to the art of reporting, covering etc.
Of course, over time, the lines between the two get blurred. For example, Rafat Ali, the one man who most epitomized bootstrapping and taking on media titans without outside financing: “write to me when you get financing,” when I sent him some info on our company. I was not offended. I understood. But it was ironic that Paid Content would suddenly hold off on writing about a company until they had secured outside VC. I have a thick skin, I chalked it up to “he’s not interested, that was not excuse.” I have an ocean’s amount for what Rafat has done, on his terms, but if that does not demonstrate the insanity in the space, I do not know what does.
Alas, when the traditional journalist starts to blog, he realizes that the blogosphere is a cluttered and chaotic place. To him, it goes against everything he has come to learn. Wrongfully, the journalist with 10-20 years of writing experience looks at the entire blogosphere suspiciously. It (definitely not rightfully) throws them off and makes them question everything: “how could I not get the respect and attention I deserve?”
I am certainly not saying that the traditional “highfalutin” journalist is a better writer, more knowledgeable etc. (and am not calling Carr highfalutin), but he’s spent years working on his craft and the thought that a newbie blogger has more of a following online is blasphemous.
Whether you want to admit it or not: it’s basic psychology and pretty common sense that the newbie blogger would love to be recognized in traditional publishing circles (case in point: Wonkette writing in Time) while the established and experience journalist wants some street cred with the blogger “in-crowd.”
When the world collide and a traditional journalist covers a blogger, do we expect it to be all positive? Of course there will be some criticism, a snide remark or an outright lashing.
In other words, when a traditional journalist / news services recognize a blogger and point out a potential trouble area point, why the need to be defensive? Take the good with the bad.
Example: the criticism leveled at Michael Arrington and Tech Crunch. Are we surprised that journalists from traditional news circles would be aghast at a site that strives to cover startups yet only cover those that the editor has an interest in?
The adage of “no conflict, no interest” is a smokescreen, brought up here by VC Fred Wilson. I have tremendous respect for a bloke like Fred Wilson, but simply looking the other way and not addressing and recognizing the validity in the criticism is almost like being guilty by association. One thing that did strike a note with me in his defense was this:
Michael is a blogger “that has taken the blog format and made it his/her own. He has shown the world why blogging is a superior form of media. (…) Don’t for a second think that Mike is “objective” or “fair”. He’s not and he’s never claimed to be. I hope nobody thinks I am objective or fair either. I’ve got a business, a portfolio, my political views, and I express them without the intent of objectivity every day on this blog. That is what blogs are all about. People driven media, opinions, reality.”
That probably helped me define my style more than anything else.
For the purpose of disclosure: much like I emailed Raf about a product months ago, a month ago I submitted some info to Tech Crunch because I saw “product launch.” I did not expect to be mentioned, nor was I offended and shocked at not being mentioned. Coverage in a newspaper, mention on a blog is not what I consider to be a mark of success: audience-building, profitability and hiring the best people are. Sure, a mention might help, but if you are counting on something like that to build your business, close the business and go find something else to do. But no need to get off topic.
The fact remains: Don’t pretend to be a source of news if you are in fact a PR service for clients you have an interest in. If that’s what you are, say it loud and clear. I always said that I launched this blog network to combine my maniacal writing aspirations with promoting the sister companies in the network. The search box in the upper right, that plugs our vertical search. In every post, you will see linkbacks to things I’ve written, other areas of the site we want you to discover. There’s no mystery.
It’s fine if that’s what you want to do, so long as you are open and upfront about it. But then don’t be surprised to hear criticism from folks and when you do, don’t blast them for being irrelevant or hypocrites: the notion that old-school journalists have special relationships with management of companies and that’s how they get the inside news is not a fair comparison because those journalists do not own the papers they write for. Michael Arrington is not just a great writer with a keen eye of technology trends, he’s also the owner, so his coverage directly impacts the value of Tech Crunch and his holdings in the companies he does business with.
It’s not something that I personally am appalled at or anything, since I have worked in publishing and advertising and there are far more dubious practices, but it’s the kind of thing that will draw criticism, so when you get some heat, simply disregarding it and throwing out smokescreens and red herrings shows a guilty conscience, if anything.
We’re all a bunch of hypocrites when it comes to these things. We all deserve a lot of criticism, but it’s how we react to the criticism that divides the professionals with the amateurs.
All right, I feel quite proud, in one 1,000-word post, I managed to criticize legendary sports team owner / web entrepreneur Mark Cuban, successful lawyer/web entrepreneur Michael Arrington, successful writer/web entrepreneur Rafat Ali, Fred Wilson who is a tremendously successful venture capitalist who might have helped the Democrats win the Senate/House, and if that’s not enough, the entire blogosphere!
Anyway, back to work: I love this business (Web in general, blogging in particular so I guess that wasn’t really bashing the blogosphere).
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