Media Bloggers Association / AP / Bogosphere links
I don't have much to say about the Media Bloggers Association / AP controversy, except that the surrounding circus was an incredibly demagogic and corrupt affair that drove home again - if yet another proof were needed - how much pandering to the mob is the key to blog success (and hence how much I've wasted my time).
Read Shelley Powers:
What's particularly sad about this recent variation of the AP fooflah, isn't so much that the MBA is representing "all" bloggers so much, but that people like [A-listers], seem to be offended that Robert Cox is getting attention, which we assume, should be directed at [those A-listers]. This following digging up an old AP form, set up for businesses who want to incorporate AP content into their material, and making a breathless and astonishing leap of judgment that this is what the AP's answer to webloggers is going to be. Talk about manufacturing facts out of whole cloth - this, this is our newest form of journalism?
It just mystifies me how most bloggers are reacting to the AP spin and then attacking Robert Cox when it should be the opposite.
NOTE: Amazingly there are now stories out there conflating two entirely false stories, linking them to the Drudge Retort story and then going way beyond the edges of reality. The latest story is that AP's icopyright service shows that the Drudge Retort case is all part of a sinister plot by the AP to charge bloggers several dollars per word to quote an AP story.
Why is the Media Bloggers Association getting its ass kicked all over the Internet for attempting to have a dialogue with AP about the Drudge Retort's DMCA takedown dispute?
Because the name of the game is GET ATTENTION!, truth be damned. And this post is an exercise in futility.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in mba | on June 19, 2008 11:53 PM (Infothought permalink)
Cheers - I probably would never have come across any of that on my own.
'Exercise in futility'?
What was your post's objective?
To get attention, or remedy the fact that "Someone is wrong on the Internet"?
Or other?
As usual very insightful but, I feel compelled to call you ... I don't know ... Eeyore.
You're like the Eeyore of the blogosphere. "Nobody reads me", "It's an exercise in futility". Isn't that you're own way, just like Eeyore, of getting attention. I mean, you're still blogging, right?
;)
And anyhow, who has a Guardian column?
Yes, popularity is king because the economic system of the web is meant to mimic movies, books, magazines. Pageviews gets you money. Lots of money if you know how to segment and qualify your traffic.
What you fail to grasp is how influence is not monolithic. There are different degrees as well as different kinds of influence and most of them have nothing to do with popularity.
I mean, how is it that people like you, me, Robert have influence that is impactful in ways that make assholes like Kos want to go out of his way to smear and discredit those who he sees as not as good as him, the owner of the biggest political blog in "teh universe"?
Because people like you, me, Bob, we're the proof of how the web is not hierarchical. That the economics of traffic is an artificial way of measuring success, based on outdated models that come from the entertainment industry.
Influence is much more complex to understand and to parse for most people. It is not for me because I don't think in terms of continuums or progressions but of networks. I've come to realize that I am a people person and that I am more interested in relationships than in popularity.
That's something that a lot of A-listers do not understand because they're only about the numbers and not relationships.
And, by the way, even Eeyore cares about his relationships even though he expresses it in the negative.
Just saying :)
/ liza
Liza Sabater
http://culturekitchen.com
ps : I think it will be 6 or 7 years I've been reading your blog. I look forward for many more :)
Great job going into the comments at the center of this anti-MBA blogstorm and speaking truth to a mob.
Hopeless but brave. I've met Cox once and it seemed to me that he was scarred by his legal experience and he's trying to put bloggers of all political persuasions in a better position when they get confronted by the big guys.
Sad, but unfortunately too typical when there's such a hateful rush to judgement.
Liza wrote: "Because people like you, me, Bob, we're the proof of how the web is not hierarchical..."
Well, if it's not hierarchical, all Bob has to do is to speak to a bunch of random blogs, and the MBA's reputation will be restored.
Er... maybe it's just more efficient to start from the top. Who does Arrington answer to? Shel Israel, of course. And Shel's, umm, handler is in Gotham, which is quite convenient for Bob.
Chris: Sadly, that's part of the problem :-(
Crosbie: To remedy the fact that "Someone is wrong on the Internet". As I've said, it's a bad habit.
liza: In fact, I've been called Eeyore, and have an Eeyore pic that I've occasionally put in posts. "Pathetic. That's what it is. Pathetic".
Dave: Thanks, I tried. Futility in action.
Jon: He answers to the MSM, of course. The Washington Post in particular.