Jordan Golson from the Industry Standard was busy defending Loren Feldman, and calling the anti-Feldman protesters "self-righteous". And in building his case he argued that the Feldman might have actually *helped* the cause of the protesters by allowing people to notice how there are no prominent black bloggers. Jordan's argument goes as follows:
I really doubt that one video from one sort-of well-known video blogger is going to change anyone's mind towards black people in a bad way. In fact, for me, it did the opposite. I did wonder where the black minds in tech are. Sure, there are a few, but they aren't very prominent. From my (very white) point-of-view, there are more blacks in Conservative politics (Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, etc) than there are in high-profile tech-circles.
What follows then is what got interesting. One commenter offered me up as an example of a prominent blogger. While I am thankful for the recognition, I will totally cop to the arguable nature of the proposition. Nevertheless, Golson's response is interesting. He checks out my blog and then follows up with this fascinating retort.
Like I said, not very prominent. I'm sorry, I have trouble taking someone seriously who uses a standard blogspot template.
Interestingly, a discussion ensues on friendfeed where the first commenter there says:
Who's keeping track of the dumbest comments of 2008? This one needs to get on the list.
After it is pointed out that Golson himself uses a standard blog template, he then digs himself a bigger hole with this comment:
Sure, I use that template on a blog... that I haven't updated in 2 years. My point still stands -- he isn't a "prominent" person in tech. He isn't Scoble, he isn't Calacanis. Blacks are underrepresented in tech. I didn't say I WAS prominent -- just that he wasn't. Blogging for AlleyInsider doesn't exactly make you prominent. Neither does writing for Valleywag or Industry Standard. But having 40,000 followers on Twitter? I'd say that gives you prominence. But, you know -- attack away if it makes ya feel good -
And so apparently he has fallen back on some bizarre attempt to be "supportive" by arguing that his intent wasn't dismissive and disrespectful. He was just trying to tell the world that there are no Scobles, Calcanises, or Arringtons that are black, and what a pity it is. Fascinatingly though, his argument was totally unrelated to the size of my audience. Apparently prominence has nothing to do with audience size or visibility. Prominence is based on having a pretty blog template.
When you think about his words, the real subtext becomes clear. The truth is, once he came to my site, the argument ceased to be about "prominence". He actually made a judgment about me as a person, and not my prominence. To say he couldn't "take me seriously", based purely on the color of my, excuse me, nature of my blog template is really a very different matter than discussing my visibility in the marketplace. In truth the discussion really wasn't about prominence or audience size but about who he feels is "significant" based on his own oddly subjective criteria. And for Golson, that assessment was disturbingly superficial.
26 comments:
Honestly, I read this thread as Golson making an unresearched (and silly) statement. Instead of admitting he was wrong, he searched for facts to build his case. When he couldn't find any, he tried to change the argument entirely. Blog template? That's reeks of desperation.
In other words, I think this about his intellectual vanity and not much else.
I don't care about blog templates that much anymore since most of my reading is done via RSS. For the longest time, I myself was using a newspaper-style template myself (white background with black text) because I couldn't find a template I really liked (I have now, though). Still, who cares? It's just a platform for writing your thoughts - and those thoughts are what's important.
Jeff,
You may very well be right. People do do and say dumb things when backed into a corner. Unfortunately when you keep defending the indefensible, things have a way of just sounding worse and worse. A simple, sincere mea culpa would certainly clean this up. But I don't expect that.
Sarah,
Indeed in my case it is even worse. I am lazy. I do my blog in the morning and then I am done. I don't have time to futz with a template, and I don't want to learn the blogspot template system, Particularly when I plan to move to wordpress.
By the way, love your work at RWW.
"based purely on the color of my, excuse me, nature of my blog template"
Bravo, that one has me laughing out loud.
Wishing for more "Scobles, Calcanis or Arringtons" is a bit like wishing for more George W Bushes - as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
Hank,
What a great post and what a fantastic way to pull everything together - never thought about it like that but you touched on a very interesting commonality between two very different things.
Now I don't know this other guy so I want to be clear that I am in no way judging what he is or isn't.
That said as ridiculous as it feels to say out loud there is something to be said for the similarity of dismissing a person because of the color of their skin and dismissing a person because of the "nature of their blog template."
*Subscribe*
Thanks Mark, I aim to please :)
Hank,
I have a custom-templated blog, and I subscribe to your blog. That gives you a custom-template by proxy.
KrazyDad
Haha, absolutely brilliant post Hank. His response to this post with be something along the lines of DOH!
Nice looking blogs are cool but its the content and the value that counts, i think.
Cheers
Scott
I think there are two notions of influence at work here also. I don't read Scoble or TechCrunch much because i'm not interested in flavor-of-the-week technology or who got venture capital. I read this blog because you've actually built some interesting stuff, and that's what i respect in terms of technical influence.
Ask him if he takes Bram Cohen seriously.
http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/
What fascinates me about this whole online brouhaha is that it's really asking a larger question of relevance for the entire industry.
Remember, blogs have only been around for 10 years. Much of that time was using them for hobbyist personal diaries and that's a stigma that still carries forward. My current major project is pitching a blog network framework into a business's online presence and I'm meeting a lot of paradigm resistance because people here still view blogs as unprofessional and just something kids use to post their teen angst drama.
Of course, those personal journal blogs still exist in parallel to the "professional" blogosphere. And because they exist, they continue to challenge the validity and relevance of professional blogs. So we all make efforts to circle the wagons and defend our credibility. Maybe it's becoming affiliated with an already respectable network like CNet, maybe it's taking consulting gigs with big corporations, or going on conference/lecture circuits. Ultimately, it's whatever differentiates us from the unprofessional bloggers, which means defining the "Other".
Remember before blogs, when it was just the web and businesses big and small were trying to establish reputation in the face of geocities type sites? Did you have a private domain or were you on a /~username site? And then there was the .com vs .net/.org stigma. It's all the same game playing itself out over again.
So now you've had the line drawn against you. You're on blogger. You're using a standard template. You're not part of a big network. For shame! Drawing a line against you is ridiculous. The current in-crowd blogosphere is such a small slice of the entire world's traffic that to have Jordan Nelson deride Hank Williams is just spitting into the digital ocean.
And using Twitter to determine relevance? Total Twitter userbase is about 0.1% of Internet use. About 1% of US Internet use. 40K Twitter users is .00003% of the Internet.
If the blogosphere wants to be taken seriously it needs to learn that a cliquish attitude of exclusivity makes for a smaller slice of the Internet pie. So by dismissing blogs like yours, they ensure that they are holding back the industry instead of supporting it.
Ultimately though what the blogosphere needs to remember is that content is king and Google is the arbiter. Being part of the in-crowd doesn't matter to Google. It might weight GoogleRanking a little, but property matters less than content.
Which is how I found your blog. And curiously, I've never heard of Jordan Nelson before this. Content wins again!
Hey Hank,
I truly appreciate you digging into the subject of race in tech. I grew up in the south where there is plenty of ignorance to go around, but everyone lives in close proximity to one another. It seemed like even overt racists had a friend or two on the other side of the racial divide.
I have always been confused by how deeply segregated the tech world is on race and gender. This whole uproar has made it clear to me that at least one component of the problem is that black people and women are generally made to feel unwelcome by people that may not even completely understand that they're doing it.
It's so easy for us all to lose sight of what life might be like for someone else and it really does help to hear someone speak from their own life experience.
Even if (especially when?) the ignorance seems overwhelming, please don't stop - you are making a difference.
Also along these lines, we always have to remember that our sphere isn't inclusive of the whole. Black bloggers may not be prevalent in the very small slice that is English speaking professional technology blogs, but that doesn't mean there are no black bloggers.
Here's a relevant blog post on that: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/digitalnatives/2008/04/15/beyond-lie-dragons-delimiting-blogospheres/
I don't like his estimate of "prominence". He should Google seomoz' white board friday where he discusses "Every blog has it's way" and analyzes types of blog prominence. One is that there isn't lots of traffics or lots of subscribers but all the "right" people read. I believe Rand called it an influencer blog.
Based on skimming your writing, you probably fall into that category. Good content.
However, he has a point on the traffic side. I don't know your numbers but I can extrapolate. Compete shows approx 12000 visitors a day with 2 pages (on average) per visitor. Approx 25k page views. TrafficEstimate.com shows 66k (they are always pretty high). I'm guessing you're around 35-40k pageviews per month. Let's be fair, that's not significant traffic for "prominence".
That said, my numbers are not all that much higher and most people in tech consider me "up and coming" if not "prominent".
So there's probably a lot going on here that isn't being said. At least you aren't using a blogspot domain name. :)
Wonder why he did not comment on why you use Blogger and not a service like Typepad for blogging. This is outright silly.
And this idea of lack of black representation in particular and minorities in general in the blogging world is stupid. How about lack of Arab bloggers, or Asian bloggers or wait, I don't see any prominent red-neck bloggers. Why not comment on them?
Feldman's video was intentional and insulting. You can 'feel' it. There is a fine line between satire and unjust insult. And it was breached for sure.
Hey Hank,
No post today ?
have a great weekend.
A wise man once shared this gem with me: "when you've dug yourself a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging."
LOL.
Have a great day, my most prominent friend.
:-)
Chuck Boyce
What does prominence mean? Is it popular? Are popular and influential the same thing, I think they can be but often they are not.
Regardless I read your blog and appreciate your insights, keep up the good work!
Gareth Thomas
"In truth the discussion really wasn't about prominence or audience size but about who he feels is *significant* based on his own oddly subjective criteria."
I think you can pretty much boil the entire post down to that statement. Thanks, Hank, for demonstrating how to subtly cut ignorant people off at the knees.
Hank, if I looked as good as you and wrote half as well, I'd have a standard blog template too. No need to detract from the main show, eh?
Actually, Golson's comment is kinda ironic since he uses a standard Tumblr template for his personal site and writes for Gawker Media, which uses the same blog theme for every single one of their sites.
Anyway, as an actual honest-to-goodness tech professional (i.e. people pay me to do tech not blab about it) I can say that your thoughts and posts are much appreciated. I've been a subscriber for a long time, Hank. Keep on writing the good stuff and I'll keep on reading and forwarding it to real tech people who also appreciate it.
This discussion is all very well, but did I mention I really like the visual design of your site?
Brilliant post. One worth quoting and keeping. Thanks for your intelligent writing.
The comments were so of the ilk that he was just trying to prove his claim. Folks who can't listen are much help to a conversation.
I am not in the position to offer swag, but if you comment about your progress I'll provide promotion to you in future posts.
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jeff
Wide Circles
This is nice article. The article is all about intellectual vanity.
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gordongreg
widecircles
"based purely on the color of my, excuse me, nature of my blog template"
Bravo, that one has me laughing out loud.
Me also.
I actually arrived here doing a search to determine whether a "blogger" template that I liked would work on LiveJournal, without excessive CSS/XML/HTML futzing. (WRT certain things, I am a Luddite of the shiniest Ludditeness.)
So if you are ever so inclined, you can inform your observer that your blog, despite its template, is sufficiently "prominent" to appear on the very first page of certain websearches through Google. :-)
(I do find the gender composition of your commenters worth noting, but I'm also sure that's a discussion for another day. ;-))
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