If A-listers stopped blogging for a week

Mar 24, 2006 Published by Tyme White

Dave Winer poses an interesting question:

Wouldn’t it be interesting if every certified A-lister, by convention, didn’t blog during the third week of every month. What if that idea caught on?

Yes Dave, that would be interesting…in an amusing but disastrous type of way.

  1. Memeorandum wouldn’t update for a week (and sites like them).
  2. Many non-bloggers would have nothing to read. Imagine no Boing Boing (they are all A-list bloggers), Scripting, Tech Crunch, Robert Scoble, Om Malik…the list goes on.
  3. Bloggers wouldn’t have anything to write about and would *gasp* have to create some original content. Not that many don’t but the vast majority point to…you guessed it, A-listers. Hell, if Dave hadn’t written his entry, I wouldn’t be writing this one.

That’s the way it works.

The above scenario doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be quality content to read. Good luck finding it though. Technorati’s top searches would be filled with “how the internet went dead”. Think about it…if they “really” stopped blogging for a week – there goes a big chunk of content for sites like ZDNET, CNET, Slashdot. And it would only get worse with services like BlogBurst, taking blog content and pushing it to traditional publishers.

This caused me to look at my entries a bit to see how this would affect me. I have a good balance of linking to A-listers, small blogs and creating original content. Keeping it real, that was not always the case. Looking back there are many entries where I looked in FeedDemon, something an A-lister wrote sparked my interest and I wrote about it…like the A-List Shuffle entry. Almost a year to the day people were complaining that Dave is stingy with links.

Hello! Black woman, non-A-Lister was linked to by Dave. Again. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

I’d like to see the A-listers stop blogging just to see the impact it would have on the net, but it’s highly unlikely that would happen. Too much money would be lost that week.

Related posts:

  1. The A-List shuffle is finally happening
  2. Tyme’s Thoughts: Dave Winer to stop blogging
  3. Blogging vs. journal - the real deal
  4. What’s a blog?
  5. Would You Buy a Car from this Blogger? Highly unlikely (for me at least)

9 Responses

    1. Aaron Says:

      Ha, you crack me up. Interesting, would Technorati’s 100 blogs update quick enough so I could find new blogs?

      I did not realize how many commercial blogs there were. A lot of money would be lost that week.

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

    2. Phillipe Says:

      The internet comes to a slow screeching stop, temporarily LOL.

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 3:10 pm

    3. Tyme Says:

      That’s my point - the internet would still be thriving it would “seem” like it stopped. It would definitely be felt but sites like Digg where the content is user generated would be the survivers. What would non-bloggers (or people who don’t know about Digg) do? No idea.

      Technorati bases their stats on links but just because something is linked a lot doesn’t mean it’s “good”. Links can be gamed. The “true” blogs - non commercial blogs where bloggers are blogging because they love it - have gotten lost in the shuffle.

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 3:13 pm

    4. Felicia Says:

      Interesting scenario. I also did not realize how many top bloggers had commercial interests.

      There are a ton of blogs that I don’t get their function. All they do is link to top bloggers. Why does a reader need a middle man? Just read the blogs they link to, especially since I have to end up clicking over there anyway.

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 3:34 pm

    5. Frank Adams Says:

      What happened to PubSub? Perhap that service would be more beneficial?

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 3:45 pm

    6. Scrivs Says:

      People would have to go to 9rules or something.

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    7. Francine Says:

      Hehe, funny Scrivs.

      Tyme I remember that debate. Girl, you stirred up some stuff. I don’t think half the internet realized you are a black female.

      I always wished Technorati had more than a link-based list or if it must be link-based, do it by niche. Top auto blogs. Top cooking blogs. That would give bloggers more exposure and give readers more options.

      Posted on March 24th, 2006 at 4:16 pm

    8. Thame Says:

      I just got this huge Atlas Shrugged vibe :D

      Posted on March 27th, 2006 at 9:19 pm

    9. Michael Says:

      People would have to find another place to push comments and trackbacks.

      Posted on March 27th, 2006 at 9:42 pm