Over a year ago, I had the opportunity to step into the rarified boots of Darren Rowse for a week while he was one vacation. During that week, one of my more popular posts was one called “how to market your blog in 2007“. While watching the nerd fight (albeit between two wealthy nerds) going on between Fred Wilson and Mike Arrington, I couldn’t help but think *once again* how Mike Arrington is using blog / nerd fights to his advantage.
In a Machiavellian way, he should get a big pat on the back (but being thoroughly schooled in Machiavellian transactions, he’d be watching closely for a knife as well).
Andy Beal summarizes it much better than I ever could, but this is the two second summary.
Fred Wilson, wealthy venture capitalist, decides to take a few bloggers (who were journalists at one time) to task about the breadth of their coverage. He admits that the companies that aren’t receiving pub are the ones that he has a direct connection to.
Mike Arrington decides to jump in with both fists (wrapped in tape, dunked in glue, covered with glass shards) to defend one of the bloggers who are on his staff, by deconstructing Fred’s arguments, and then proceeds level with some personal attacks by calling him out: hypocritical, wrong, and conflicted — which should be no surprise, because that’s exactly what the title of the post is.
What happens now?
A storm of blog / nerd controversy as all the feeder blogs chime in, and Techmeme temporarily pushes said story to the top (because Techcrunch is the gorilla pimp of all tech media, according to Techmeme, and scores almost 50% more on the juice scale than its next competitor, CNET — which would merely be, for example, a monkey pimp, small and suitable for grooming other gorilla pimps).
Mike’s said this more than once, and it bears linking to. When he writes controversial stuff, he wins.
I’ll repeat that.
When he write controversial stuff, he wins.
In fact, the MORE that a big blog writes controversial stuff, the more that they will will win, compared to any given competitor; factoring in the X-Factor, which is the meanness quotient, and it multiples their overall winness (or, pwnage, if you’re WOW/CS/Halo-inclined).
And that’s why when I read stuff like this, I read it with a grain of salt.
I mean, it doesn’t really matter so much what the facts are, so much that everyone’s watching now.
Joe - we’ve found that the “hits” - the blog posts that generate a lot of discussion - are the ones that drive all stats, including, indirectly, monetization. The problem is knowing what’s a hit and what isn’t before it actually happens. Given that we are all rushing into new territory, I think a little leeway is appropriate.
Now, yes, its important to throw out the usual biscuit about blogger integrity, and so on, and so on. But the takeaway message is clearly this:
Engage your community. Don’t be afraid to get physical (in a metaphorical kind of way), and call people out. Don’t afraid to be negative. But be prepared to fight for your opinion.
And the bigger you are, the more effective it is (because people know about you). But even if you’re only a chimp-sized pimp (and not a Gorilla-sized one), its also effective, particularly if you call out a larger sized one and they actually respond.
{hint: it really works if what you’re saying has a ring of truth to some people}
