WebProNews

Civility departs from the blogosphere

In the nearly three years this writer has been diligently typing away, we witnessed cute and compelling blogs grow into the kind of pre-pubescent youth who rationalize violence as a way of dominating their little island.

The Good Ship Blogosphere foundered against the rocky shores of the island of Capital, as far as we can tell. If Piggy's not dead already, someone's groping for a rock, a decent grip, and the right angle for the killing blow.

Remember, the rising blogosphere offered the prospect of something better than all the tech journals in print. Real-time access to breaking information, along with the kind of commentary one couldn't possibly find in the ad-dominated trade mags, existed as the currency of the blog realm.

Then some folks woke up one morning and realized currency, real Gulfstream-flying, Kobe steak-eating cash money where lots of zeroes parade behind an inconsequential digit, dangled within reach. And as human nature is wont to do, some of the hands that reach turned into fists that kill.

Witness the last 24 hours of the blogs, highlighted on tracking site Techmeme. Michael Arrington wants to crush CNET, which seems to be doing a good job of that itself, as Arrington wrote in TechCrunch.

Kara Swisher at BoomTown snarked away at that idea. She even used showtunes to do it.

"Could it have something to do with the fact that he’s been busy recently talking to several well-known tech blogs about joining a rollup organized by TechCrunch itself?" Swisher asked. The idea of money does make people do strange things.

When Arrington aimed the TechCrunch audience at PaidContent, where Rafat Ali claimed a one-sided cold war between the two sites may be in process, the cold war heated up. "All it would have taken you to get the facts is drop me an e-mail. Instead, you got it wrong on all counts," Ali said of the TechCrunch contention that PaidContent wants to raise money and sell out fast.

Not much happiness there either. One would almost come to the conclusion that the Internet isn't a big enough place for varying points of view. When did blogging become a zero-sum game? When the venture capital types came around with their glad handing manner and Louis Vuitton bags full of Benjamins?

Swisher hinted at one event in recent years that could have served as the tipping point from blogging out of dogged interest in a niche to blogging out of dogged interest of a major, I've got F-U money, payday.

That would be the sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL, which reportedly scored Jason Calacanis a payday in the $25 million range. The sale spurred Calacanis into the world of venture capital, where everyone dreams of finding the next Google and bathing in the blood of virgins thanks to the incalculable wealth an IPO would deliver.

(If the virgin imagery bothers you, think of it as tomato juice that's been creatively labeled. Thanks.)

Calacanis' attacks on the SEO world have made for quotable bites, easily digested and passed into other blog posts. Why he attacks SEO has been something of a mystery. Perhaps some SEO's granddad was responsible for moving the Dodgers out of his beloved Brooklyn?

He's right to denounce the fraudsters who give SEO a bad name; those folks deserve quality time with a Singaporean cane-wielding disciplinarian while our WebProNews Video crew captures the action.

But the ripping for ripping's sake, from people who could contribute more with their diligent and thoughtful blogging, doesn't make a lot of sense. When Daring Fireball's John Gruber calls Leander Kahney a "f**king jackass," it just reinforces the common tech world perception that Mac fans see no farther ahead of themselves than the length of their iPod earphone cords. Even if Gruber's assessments of Kahney's piece in Wired are correct.

(Gruber linked to Kahney's well-known "Cult of Mac" book with a Daring Fireball affiliate link at Amazon a few paragraphs ahead of suggesting Kahney is either "willfully obtuse or a sh*thead." We call that gleeful opportunism.)

This isn't so much a trite "why can't we all get along" piece as much as it is a "what happened to you people" discourse. The Internet isn't network television circa 1979, where viewing one channel at 8pm meant missing what was on another station.

Room exists for all kinds of views, but what the Internet audience needs are the high-quality views that set apart the best blogs from the crowd. It could be that one's level of success at writing online won't exceed a certain threshold of compensation. But seriously, how much is enough?