being jesus (Or TechCrunch, Instablogs and Me)

So I read Arrington’s rant yesterday and something bothered me.

The idea of blogger super heroes getting together to fight CNET just struck me as bizarre.

Now Mike’s a smart guy if your goal is cash.

But isn’t his idea a bit 20th Century?

It’s chasing pavements instead of being a really big idea.

I think what bugs me is that it feels so…wrong.

It’s ignoring something important.

I know we all still have that 20th Century residue on us but a quick look at the true success stories of the 21st Century is all about building something useful for me.

Something with value to me.

The idea of a blogger justice league to fight CNET (who has enough problems) is ludicrous.

It’s a quagmire in the making.

Let me give wanna be superstar bloggers some unasked for advice.

It’s not about you. And it’s not about them.

It’s about me.

The smartest person in the blog network in the game is Denton. Because he realizes something that Mike seems to miss.

All the Gawker sites are not really about the writers.

They are about the comments.

The users.

Anything to get more participation out the audience is the only way to really grow.

It doesn’t matter who blogs. I mean good writing is important but getting a good audience is even more important.

And how do you do that? By shifting the power of your site away from you and to me.

A few days ago TC writer Duncan got his hands on the financials of Instablogs. He obviously got them from a reader.

Now the Instablogs story is an interesting one.

Ankit and hot chick/excellent writer Nandini started it with a thousand dollars and now they are making 25k a month.

And they are negotiating a 3 million dollar cash influx.

One look at the Instablogs site tells you it’s all about me.

Though they have news from the AP the site is all about audience participation. People from all over the world argue and complain and vote and comment on the issues of the day.

It’s really hard for something like that to fail.

Why?

Because the users are invested.

They come back again and again to see who said what to them.

Now back to TC.

After reading Duncan’s post people had questions. So many that the CEO of Instablogs chimed in to clarify a few things.

I mean Duncan is a very cool guy (had drinks with him and Loren about a year ago) but what was interesting about that post was the comments.

That’s why Fred’s investment in Disqus was smart.

Cuz that’s where the action (and the money) is.

In the apostles.

Someone please remind Mike that Jesus dies.

Explore posts in the same categories: Ankit Maheshwari, blog networks, comments, disqus, Duncan Riley, Michael Arrington, Nandini Maheshwari, techcrunch

Tags: disqus, Fred Wilson, instablogs, jesus, techcrunch, the future, whereisthemoneyat?

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