Hmm been a lot of chatter in the new media space the last few days on the feted “A-List” bloggers. This actually inspired some thoughts and ideas on my part and even some research for this blog post. The first place I picked up on this meme was over at Hugh Macleod’s Gaping Void here.
One trend that bloggers don’t want to talk about? A number of my blogging friends have seen their traffic go down lately. They assume that their readers are off in social networks. I think they are absolutely right.
For once I disagree with Robert. I DO want to talk about it. Because I actually concur with Robert’s thesis. And I am utterly delighted to do so.
oTop sentence he’s quoting from Robert Scoble, lower one is beginning of his response. Scoble has one hell of a funny post on A-Listers here.They go on to talk about effect of online communities like Facebook, Twitter and Pownce, and the impact on their blog traffic. Well I didn’t have impressive blog traffic to begin with. That’s another thing-impressing. I’ve been doing this mainly for fun and the hope of stimulating some conversation. I guess if I’m trying to impress at all it would be to impress you enough to think a little more and trust that the heavy mental lifting would be shared by both of us. I don’t presume that my words are that magical that they can change your life without you even having to think about them. 
You know I’m not hip enough to know who all the A-Lister’s are but I do know some and have to say they do offer some interesting content or at least “points” to interesting stuff, at least sometimes. So I’m not shocked why some of them are really popular. This brings up the question-is popularity the benchmark? Can it be there are some cool popular or A-List people and have a like or even greater number of equally cool or interesting unknowns? Hasn’t the Internet been one of the greatest democratic tools (of the technologically enabled) in our social space? Hasn’t it leveled the playing field so that anyone that wants to say something and have a chance at being heard does have one? Isn’t everyone cool now by default? We pretty much all have the same tools/toys, some with more bells some with more whistles.
I confess the thing I’m really liking about Facebook is that it enables me to filter and be filtered more in terms of common interest. Now coming from me that’s funny because I’m an eclectic person with interests all across the spectrum. It works pretty good though. Hence, I have a group of somewhat like-minded souls that I can observe/be observed by sometimes lead and sometimes follow. That works for me. Guess I’m not worried if people at Facebook or my Facebook A.Connector group interact with me there or at the blog or by e-mail or saying nothing ever but wishing me warm happy thoughts.
One other thought/hope I have is that the Internet engenders open-mindedness. Many things I see on Twitter or Pownce don’t particularly interest me-but some do. How many times has that poor baby been thrown out with the bath water? The beauty of life and people is the diversity. Yeah we all like people to laugh at our jokes and to like us. Can’t always be that way and the ‘Net won’t change that, but hopefully it will allow greater tolerance and respect for the diversity of thought. One of the things it took me a long time to get my head around here in Taiwan which has the main portion of it’s culture in common with China-there are many sides to an issue and since they all have their persuasive points one should reserve judgment and avoid conflict.
In closing, I’ll point to one of my new favs in the New Media space due to his candor, tongue-in-cheek almost sardonic humor and brevity:Loren Feldman here.
Just thinking out loud on A Sunday morning, care to join me?
