Sunday, January 25, 2004
(10:09 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Blogging Popularity
Adam Robinson, in the middle of a fit of blorgic frenzy, says:
It'd be great if I went to a restaurant and someone who read "Oh, The Organization" was my server. It'd be great if he said, "No no, Mr. Robinson, you're money's no good here." Once, I went to that hip (and yummy) restaurant, Palomino, with Ted Leo/The Pharmacists--not a famous band by any means--and the manager comped their meals and sent them wine. It wasn't a nod to their "popularity," it was an act of appreciation for their music and the sacrifices they have to make.
That's what I'm talking about. That's why I only blogroll people who might have time to talk to me, people who can be personable. Adam Kotsko's Weblog is usually so good I can't understand why he isn't blogrolled at CalPundit, like just about everyone else in the world.
Take down the bourgeois; take back the internet.
First, let's be clear: I'm all about taking down the bourgeois. That's not in question here.
I'd just like to mention that, in all fairness, a big chunk of blogging popularity is based on merit. For instance, Atrios averages 20,000 posts a day (compared to 1.5 a day here at The Weblog), and he manages to dig up a lot of news stories that we probably wouldn't see otherwise. There's always the chance that he will start to decline once he's "arrived," and maybe he already is to some degree, but he fills the valuable niche of a one-stop source for angry, left-leaning news. I don't know if your buddy who's just starting out his blog can quite fill that niche. As for Talking Points Memo, I'd say the popularity comes from the fact that he's a professional journalist who works primarily in blogs -- he's doing actual original reporting, which makes it feel like he's giving us the "inside juice."
Now certainly, on the right-wing blogs, there's already some of the "popular because I'm popular" type of stuff going on (for instance, InstaPundit), but left-wing blogs are a relatively new genre, so the left-wing blogging superstars are generally "actually good" on some objective level. Beyond the intrinsic quality of their content, they also tend to be those who have most advanced the lefty-blog cause, for instance by keeping a huge blogroll and bringing in some traffic for less well-known blogs. In some cases, those pioneering blogs are perhaps riding on the strength of their past successes, either in terms of a large traffic flow or in terms of money. In addition, the current popularity of niche blogs like Atrios might discourage others from attempting to fill the same niche, or might make it harder for them to generate traffic -- but at the same time, copying a popular format and filling in slightly different content might be a way to sure-fire success. After all, most blog readers are people who are bored at work, so "time to keep up" isn't always a big problem.
To some extent, the "inertia of popularity" effect is already taking place among left-wing blogs, but I don't think it's quite to the point of, say, the music industry, at least not yet.
