While I disagree in calling these folks "gatekeepers" (to me they are "those who have more influence then me") - you're spot on.

Karl: I'm the keeper of the New Gatekeepers meme so your quarrel is with me. At the end of the day, using the blogosphere as it is today, one often needs to appeal to a "new gatekeeper" to get a wider audience.

This may change though, as (if) automated aggregators improve. Then you only need to appeal to a gatekeeping algorithm-- which is more fair, in my mind.

Jon, I tried the new technorati authority algorithm. If I search on my name with the highest authority, it will not return any articles by me or posted to my blog.

That makes the electronic gatekeepers seem like even higher hurdles...

This is pretty much the same "the playing field is level enough that anyone can succeed; will and character are more important than structural factors and contingency" meme that pervades thinking about social and economic inequality.

"When one looks at the changes at the top 100 list, it's evident that the space is being colonized by professional pundits (Malkin) and professional media (Gawker, Defamer, Gothamist), knocking down the original specialist types (Scripting, Searls). This hardly means there are no gatekeepers - it means the techie gatekeepers are being pushed down/out by more professional pundits! And what's so great about that?

Consider "Huffington Post", case in point, as "More Voice For The Voiceful". Rich media person, many celebrities, gets much audience. That doesn't prove that the gatekeeper hypothesis is false - it's saying that very wealthy and well-known new players can get a position. This should not exactly be thrilling to Z-listers."

Gatekeepers...terminology that is useful, but for me only insofar as it leads to questions being posed and examinations of power and dominance. It seems that these are considered givens in your post. There's no exploration of what character flaws would lead someone to gatekeep, to not share position and public viewing.

My standpoint, I'll have to admit is one of someone newly entered the blogosphere. I've realized that I am reading and linking to and referencing folks more because they seem like interesting insightful people who could be allies or people I'd like to sustain communication with, rather than because of their positioning on all the various social and hierarchical measurement devices utilized to institute a particular kind of blog-specific class dominance.

Actually, I've found that the folks with the higher ratings on various scales seem to have to least interesting commentary. They're either lazy or just not possessing of a layered analysis of their own subject matter.

The ratings are of interest for me in the sense that I get off on the idea that I could, just by virtue of the amount of communities I'm a part of (in real time and in blogland), accrue enough odd, obscure, politically radical links to actually bypass some of the more conservative gate keepers, thereby rendering null and void their power and blog class positioning as somehow superior to me and my blog. :)

Oh, and...

"This is pretty much the same "the playing field is level enough that anyone can succeed; will and character are more important than structural factors and contingency" meme that pervades thinking about social and economic inequality."

And by the way Danny? I don't think that's what Seth is saying at all. I think he's actually trying to articulat the ways that the unlevel playing field has shifted to support the dominance of a newer group of bloggers. This doesn't make the field any more level.