Ode to a (fellow) curmudgeon – Nick Carr

by admin on August 17, 2006

Before anyone goes off on one about an ode being poetic, it doesn’t have to be. And this isn’t.

I was going to give this a miss but then I know not many people who come here read Nick Carr. Many more should. In his latest post, Nick takes a swipe at so-called A-list bloggers. Make time to read Nick’s argument and the incredible comments that follow – if you can. For those that don’t know, A-listers are the individuals who command audiences running into oo,ooos or millions each month.

One or two have gone off the deep end – IMO. Mike Arrington asks: Is Nick Carr the new Robin Hood, or just an Asshole?. Oh dear. I commented at Mikes’ place:

Err Mike – you might be missing Nick’s central point which wasn’t about the big or little guy but about the system underpinning the blogosphere – a system of patronage. He’s right on that score. And people being people want, perhaps even crave attention. So they link. This whole a-z list thing is pathetic. It’s not a numbers game, it’s an influence game. Very, very different.

Mike came back:

Dennis – good to hear from you – No, I fully understood Nick’s central point. His central point is that he is a dickhead.

Oh dear. We’ve met. I like Mike. He wants to do good things. But I think he’s gone a bit far on this. Sorry Mike.

My point about influence goes back to the 1% argument. They’re people who care about their communities and want to make things happen. They’re not all bloggers. In fact a fair few aren’t because they’re way too busy doing their thing in the communities they serve. As they should be. Quite a number take contrarian views.

So OK – the A-listers may be the perceived princes, princesses, kings and queens of the blogospheric castle. So what? The world needs curmudgeons. Of which I’m one. So is Nick. Without ‘us’ blogs would end up looking like a collection of brown nosing sycophantic blethering. That really would stink.

Finally – thank you Matt at WordPress, Dave Sifry at Technorati, Loic LeMeur at SixApart for making it easy and inexpensive for little peasants like me to reach an audience of influencers, find out who they are and be rewarded for doing something I love. You’re the real kings and princes.

Endnote: My next post will be number 1,000 as published. Phew. In less than a year.

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  • http://www.techcrunch.com michael arrington

    Hey Dennis – first of all, congrats on nearing 1,000 posts. That’s a lot of work.

    So I don’t know if I went off the deep end or not. My comments are aimed at Nick’s entire body of work, not that particular post.

    Don’t do yourself a disservice by putting yourself in the same boat as Nick, and calling yourselves curmudgeons. That you are, but not Nick. That guy has an evil soul and he takes pleasure in hurting other people. He certainly doesn’t give a hoot about community.

    I like people who are cranky, it makes their writing more interesting. But Nick is in a whole other class of jerk.

    How’s Spain these days?

  • http://www.tomrafteryit.net/ Tom Raftery

    Ouch!

    Mike, it does no-one any good to make statements like that about anyone publicly.

    If you really don’t like Nick, don’t give him any attention (i.e. don’t link to him, don’t read him and if you hear anything about him, ignore it).

    Public name calling only serves to make you look bad.

  • http://knowingart.com PJ

    You’ll never get to be “A-list” blogging about blogging.

    If all you want is attention, just buy some AdSense traffic and learn some SEO

    Anyhow, I like this WordPress theme you have ;-)

  • http://www.dead20.com Skeptic

    I like how your post has links… to some a-listers.

  • http://www.accountingweb.co.uk John Stokdyk

    Dennis – thanks for the heads-up. I really enjoyed Nick’s post, which made me realise how much I miss that other old curmudgeons, JK Galbraith. The “innocent fraud” as Nick describes it is such a clear-sighted summary of our post-industrial craziness it made me laugh out loud. Nick’s own parable wasn’t bad either.

    My own little communal island on AccountingWEB is like a lost Mayan civilization – we don’t appear on many blogosphere maps, but we’ve got a little community spirit going and sometimes we can even make a difference, without troubling technorati or other the other list-custodians that Nick decries.

    Nick ain’t evil – he’s a good writer and from this example I respect the argument he advances. The comment that made the most impact on me was from the songwriter Kent, who drew the parallels between his musical efforts and his blogs. While lots of really talented writers and performers struggle on in anonymity, a favoured (photogenic) few prosper thanks to the patronage of music industry insiders.

    That put me in mind of MySpace, and its role in the rise of the Arctic Monkeys, Lilly Allen etc etc. It’s a genuinely exciting way to discover new music and like-minded fans. But whose boat is that I see at anchor over in MySpace Bay? Why it’s old Cap’n Murdoch if I’m mistaken. Seems like Nick isn’t so far off the mark, after all.

  • http://www.loiclemeur.com Loic

    Hey Dennis, it’s a team work you know, don’t thank me, thank the company, I appreciate though.

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