I find the Calcanis exit from blogging laughable. My take … what he really is feeling is the death of A-list blogging. Note the key comment in the ‘death’ link – no-one in the iphone line recognised Scoble when he walked/ videoed the line up – not one! And that was in San Francisco! I watched the entire video, and its clear no-one recognised him.
A-listers have become too caught up in their own importance. I loved it in 2003 when Scoble passionately spoke of what Microsoft had to do to improve. In 2003 it was fun and informative to follow A-listers. Note that techmeme doesn’t focus on them as much and maybe there is a reason for that. I listened to the Gillmor Gang the other day, and they blathered on incessantly about Twitter, Friendfeed, and which is most important. I felt like saying … relax enjoy the ride, and these new services will sort themselves out as people migrate between them. Its old thinking to believe that a cadre of old guys can sit around and pontificate.
Jason Calacanis’ First New Email Post
Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts than they do on the posts themselves. In the early days of blogging Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to win at blogging: “show up every day.” In 2003 and 2004 that was the case. Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from whatever you’ve said.
What I enjoy about my blog, Rons blog, Jims blog, Williams blog, James Blog, what Brad is doing with Banktastic etc, is that they are all written by a person, speaking about his area of interest and expertise.
On the other hand we all agree, disagree, whatever, but we know and respect each others opinion, and at least for me, I learn and advance my own thinking from those conversatons. Thank you by the way.
I am happy to debate Yahoo/Microsoft, or Twitter/Friendfeed over a beer with any ScobleArringtonGillmor etc but geeze, lighten up guys. Tara is an exception. She is A list, but has not changed one bit.
I am glad we have our own space that happens to interest us, and thats all that matters. And please don’t take it personally if I did not list someones blog above. I read a ton of blogs, and you all know who you are. You are the real A list bloggers.
Bankwatch 
Wow honoured to be on your list, Colin. You were a primary inspiration for me to take what was just a link blog and start discussing issues of social media, banking and the online world.
@William … this is no small change thats going on here. What I like about our little banking/ credit union thing thats going on is that it is real genuine converstion. Thanks for stopping by!
Colin
I love comparing blogging to having a discussion over a few beers. Entertain me, inform me, challenge my opinions, give me perspective…otherwise, have the bartender bring me the tab.
I think blog readers are a fickle group. An A-lister today, may certainly be forgotten tomorrow. I don’t care so much about blogging aristocracy…I care about the conversation. If I no longer want to have a beer with you, I no longer want to read your blog. And I certainly don’t want to have a beer with someone who, like you said, is too wrapped up in his/her own importance.
I don’t know where I’ve been but I’d never heard of Jason Calcanis. When I saw the picture of his farewell press conference I thought, “Who is this guy?”. I’ve formed my own A-list that has little to do with prominence and everything to do with the topics that interest me, the regularity of the posts and the comment tone set by the blogger. Isn’t that the way most blog afficionados chose what they read online?
Wow, I too, am surprised to be in that list of my banking A listers.
To me, it’s a scale issue. Calacanis and Scoble can’t keep up with the volume for one and despite being claimed (or claiming themselves) as A listers can’t keep up with profound/thought provoking posts either. It’s just really hard to do.
I think Scoble, today, doesn’t really care though. He plays the long tail numbers, keeps talking to people and having a good time at it and what else can you ask for, right? Calacanis has always drank too much of his own Kool-Aid and it just ran out so he needed a stunt. Kudos to him for it at least working a little bit though, eh?
Thanks again for the mention Colin.
Dude, and I just saw the Banktastic badge! Double thanks for that!! 🙂
Colin,
Ditto your thoughts below:
“What I enjoy about my blog, Rons blog, Jims blog, Williams blog, James Blog, what Brad is doing with Banktastic etc, is that they are all written by a person, speaking about his area of interest and expertise.
On the other hand we all agree, disagree, whatever, but we know and respect each others opinion, and at least for me, I learn and advance my own thinking from those conversations. Thank you by the way.”
I enjoy a bunch of the A-Listers blogs and sites and I do learn from them, but being passionate about banking, I read as many banking blogs and sites as I possibly can. This is where I really learn, from my peers.
Keep up the good work.
@dmgerbino
In my area, I’ve gotten to know a pioneer in the blogging world. She was blogging before most were. She’s very proud of that, and was rightly proud of the readership that she built up. But she was so attached to “blogging” as a “thing” in its own right, that she didn’t want to get on twitter, and seemed uninterested in most other social media venues and options. So she decided to “take a break from blogging” recently. I asked her if she wanted a Brightkite invite as someone who travels a fair amount. She replied back to me, “Thanks, I’ll check that out. I have time for it now that I’m taking a hiatus from my blog.” Now she’s twittering as well, which she said she didn’t want to do a year ago. I find it funny to be so attached to the particular platform of blogging as to have no time to get involved with any of the other myriad of social media venues.
To me, you grab/use/dive into whatever tool/site/platform is the right one to do what it is you want to do. Usually the right answer involves more than one site.
Same goes for people, topics, and conversations, as CUWarrior responded. I care only a little about general topics and news; what I really am interested in is the credit union and financial services world, and my real and imaginary, errrrrrrr virtual friends (both peeps and tweeps) in the field. I also am interested in the broader social media/networking and marketing fields, but to a lesser degree than the CU and financial world.
First off, thanks for including me in your list.
More importantly, you’ve verbalized something I’ve thought but haven’t said: That some bloggers are too caught up in their own importance. Funny, but before I read this post I hadn’t even heard of Jason Calcanis. And reading his post of his “retirement” from blogging made me want to puke.
The issue here is that somewhere along the line an “A list” was created, and, it seems to me, has never been updated.
Unfortunately for the A-listers, the blogging world has changed. With millions of blogs, and millions of blog readers, it’s no longer the tight little community it might once have been.
I’m sorry, but the “A-list pressure” that Mr. Calcanis alludes to is his own making. If he wants more intimate conversations, he should simply talk to a more narrow audience.
Well, I guess there is some good news in Mr. Calcanis’ “retirement”, Colin: One less blogging body for us to have to climb over on our way to the top! (joking)
Thanks for all the comments folks, and @Ron indeed .. just another stepping stone!
And let me add my thanks too for your mention.
The conversation goes on both in the real world and virtual worlds. You I’ve met personally, and most of the rest of your list I’ve at least spoken to on the phone. And that’s the same for so many people who this stuff I think.
I was in a meeting today when a senior exec wanted to know what one of our competitors was doing… I just said I’d ring up and find out, and because of relationships built here, I could do that. In the days before the conversation, such interactions would have been impossible.
I follow a few of the A-listers mostly out of curiosity and you’re right, they all do seem to complain a lot and long for the good old days.
As the blog-o-sphere continues to expand and mature, the intimate conversations that these folks are missing are now going on in the niches, such as our little corner of the finance world.
If you clamor to have 30,000 Twitter followers, you can’t turn around and complain about the bed you have made!
@Tim … well said. I too follow some of them, but I find the value is not as high as for example, Scobles Microsoft days.