I’ve seen a few A Listers complain about less traffic (interesting reasons for dip, too, none of which relate to them).
Here’s a thought… The top reasons why A List bloggers lose their readership, many of which relate to content. Many of these could apply to any blog that’s suffering readership loss:
1. A Lister lauds mightiness, turning off readers
2. Rips off “lesser” bloggers content without attribution
3. Rests on laurels, and stops blogging as frequently
4. Again, gets a fat head and starts insulting commenters
5. Deletes comments, repelling readers
6. Is still blogging about Facebook or the iPhone
7. Only talks about him/herself, and stops writing about the blog’s mission/topic
8. More competing blogs, and some of the other blogs are hotter, more interesting, or focus on more specialized topics (from Andrew Badera and Ben Gracewood via Pownce)
9. Isn’t a part of the community anymore (blogs or social networks)
10. Has suffered too many blogodramas
What do you think?
The way I look at it is if the content isn’t interesting or stale then it’s not worth reading. I don’t subscribe to much if any A Listers so I guess they never had me.
I think it’s because they are no longer involved, and they don’t show the gratitude they once did.
When the A-Listers started, most did a lot of little things that helped improve their stickiness. They commented on their own site, they returned e-mails. Now, most are too “busy” to do so, and readers notice.
There’s also the curse of preferential attachment. People link and read the bigger blogs, precisely because they are bigger blogs. But after a while, it gets old linking the same person over and over, especially when they already have all the links in the world.
So we link elsewhere, and all the little streams of traffic dry up. The truth is the quality of the content of the A-listers, while good, was inflated by the newness of it. Once that newness drops off, the rate of people not going back to the site increases over the rate of new people finding the site.
And to be honest – there are enough aggregators – we all want specialized information now. It’s good for the net, but not for the A-listers pocketbook.
Great list, Geoff.
You raise an interesting point regarding other people getting into the space. More and more, the technorati score doesn’t tell the full story, and that’s how many still determine the A list. Is the true value to be read passively by a large group, or to be read closely by a smaller, but more influential, group?
I’m thinking Geoff has a few people in mind. ;)
I don’t know if this would add to your list, but nothing repels me from a PR blog faster than an obsession with metaphor or simile. It’s a clear indication that the thought leadership that thrust the A-lister to the top has run out, and they’re replacing strategy with guru-speak.
“The internet is a big zoo, and facebook is the panda cage. Twitter represents snackbars. Users flow back and forth, from the snack bars to the pandas, consuming little bits of content while watching pandas, going back to the snackbars and talking about pandas in 140 characters or less…”
No, I’m not naming names… ;)
Great comments! Jacob, I agree. most of the A List content is vanilla. However, vanilla sells more so they’re doing something right.
David, sorry for the vanilla metaphor ;) Definitely had folks in mind, but don’t want to call people out as it seems to have become a meme.
Patrick, the only thing that matters is a core audience. For example, TIA’s blog is not a top ranked blog. It is read by telecom industry folks, so i think it’s extremely relevant.
Last, but not least, Jim. Your analysis of linking is outstanding. I’m not sure what to say yet as i am digesting a bit, but I think this bodes more discussion. Perhaps a guest or dual blog discussion?
I think people are looking to converse about ideas, which is something A list blogs often don’t do as well as they used too.
BTW, your blog looks great on mobile.
One more to add to your list .. the competition is tough. Many excellent blogs launching every day adding to competition for ‘read time.’ #9 is interesting .. people read ‘friends.’
Good words, Kami and Toby. It really is about thoughts and inspiring conversation. And as the competition increases, I am sure we will see some blogs tumble. But in the end it makes for better reading.
Great post Geoff. I think the number one reason is because most of them forget what made them A-list bloggers in the first place. So they begin to write about A-list topics (I like this, but not that) as opposed to developing meaningful content that means something. Or perhaps another way to frame it up is to say … they become the news instead of writing about something newsworthy, eg. “Bill Gates face slammed me.” Who cares.
I couldn’t agree more, Rich. Well put.
Hi Geoff,
All the items on your list could apply to any number of people, but I think #9 deserves a bit more attention.
A couple of influencing factors:
1. What I think of as ‘attention dilution’. People who mostly blogged are now also Twittering and Facebooking. Their posts get shorter and more distracted, even when some of them actually post more to make up for it.
2. Being larger than life in a quasi intimate setting is very hard, and few people can pull it off when it happens to them. There’s jealous or resentful sniping and worse things (look what happened to Kathy). Tim O’Reilly responds to conversation on his own post and people mock swoon that it’s the ‘big man’ himself. etc. etc. etc.
I’m not saying that any of that excuses an A list blogger who loses traffic ‘honestly’, just wondering about how the population explosion and higher visibility of this medium is changing it.
Vera