Owlspotting

A great story in New York Magazine by Clive Thompson proves that blogs, which at heart seem to be the ultimate meritocracy, are plagued by the same inequalities as any other media (or whatever other industry you can think of).

The story talks about how a blogging elite has already been established and, in turn, it has created an A-list of bloggers. No matter how hard newcomers work, they’ll get stuck being B and C list names. This is not a conspiracy or a failure of the blogging world, it’s plain and simple social physics, the article says:

“The A-list is teensy, the B-list is bigger, and the C-list is simply massive. In the blogosphere, the biggest audiences — and the advertising revenue they bring — go to a small, elite few. Most bloggers toil in total obscurity.”

Read the full story here.