Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

The Lippard Blog responds to Routh Type’s description of the blogoshere as “an innocent fraud.” It’s another rehash of the A-list vs. B- and C-list blogs. Lippard’s response centers around the number of people even a smaller blog reaches. For many of us, having the number of people who read what we right is significant, even if less than the number who read the A-list blogs. Size is relative. Sure, we are smaller than the A-list blogs, but we’re all smaller than Time Magazine or virtually any network television show. That doesn’t mean that our blogs don’t get our writings out to a meaningful number of people.

B- and C-list blogs don’t get the same number of readers as the A-list, but that doesn’t mean our writings are ignored. While writing at The Democratic Daily and Light Up the Darkness I’ve been I’ve been quoted in the web sites of publications ranging from the National Journal to CBS News. Contrary to the argument that A-list bloggers only link to each other, we received links from blogs such as Crooks and Liars, Real Clear Politics, and Talking Points Memo. Starting over with my own blog obviously means a reduction in readers while I build this one up, but in a the past week I’ve received links from Daou Report (twice), and many links from the aggregators at Memeorandum and Megite. There are also numerous other smaller sites which list blog posts, providing a source of new readers for even the smallest blogs.

There’s also other ways for even small blogs to get notice. Often readers of articles or editorials in the New York Times or the Washington Post will also see links to bloggers who are commenting on the article. It’s sort of a way to put out a letter to the editor on steroids. Google loves blogs which are updated frequently. Topics I’ve blogged about often come up relatively high on a Google search, bringing in new readers to posts I have written months earlier.(The links from Google are often fun to read. Today they’ve included “Dick Devos bad” and “Lorelei Gilmore hot.” Presumably anyone who thinks Dick DeVos is good, or that Lauren Graham is a dog, would receive links to different blogs.)

In February New York Magazine ran a set of cover stories on the blogosphere, including The Blog Establishment which looks at the A list blogs. They find that the difference between the A-list and smaller blogs is generally that the A-list blogs got there first and have the most links, with links directly correlating with readership. New York Magazine does acknowledge that even the smaller blogs can find a meaningful niche:

Is all lost for the B- and C-list bloggers? Not according to “long tail” theory. Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has made a study of the geometry of the curve and argues something surprising: Because the tail goes on infinitely, the C-list, in aggregate, has a much larger audience than does the thin A-list section. This means there are infinite niches for B- and C-size blogs.