
Jason Calacanis: "Blogging Is Dead" & Why "Stupid People Shouldn't Write" - taylorbuley
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/jason_calcanis_blogging_is_dead_why_stupid_people.php
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wmeredith
Jason Calacanis runs a search spam generator (Mahalo.com) that pushes over-
SEO'd content ranging in quality from mediocre to bad. (...something he has
denied and outright lied about in public - <http://www.seobook.com/black-hat-
seo-case-study>)

His opinion on web content, and web content quality, carries little to no
water with me. This is like Uwe Boll saying that movie making is dead and
stupid people should stop making movies.

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paganel
Come on, let's be serious here for a moment.

<http://www.mahalo.com/immanuel-kant/> . Half of the page is full with stupid
Google AddWords (no, I don't want to purchase a credit when I'm reading about
Kant, you stupid Google). The other half is filled with trivia (I don't care
how many miles he walked per day), and the last 5% is passable information
probably copied from wikipedia.

The reason I went to that page is that I'm finally trying to read Kant's
"Critique of Pure Reason", and me being the stupid that I am of course that I
don't understand anything in it. This is why when someone mentioned that
they're "experts" and that they know what they're writing I tried to take
advantage and become a less stupid person. I failed.

~~~
coliveira
> Half of the page is full with stupid Google AddWords

Not trying to justify Mahalo actions here, but what you just mentioned is a
big failure on Google's side. When you add an adsense unit to a web page is
with the goal of displaying "contextually related" ads. This is what Google
promotes, but it doesn't deliver in most cases.

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zitterbewegung
This seems to smack of shameless self promotion by Calacanis. He tries to
discredit other sources of information and try to promote his website
(mahalo.com). But any blog etc.. to get any readership you have to have some
kind of draw or gimmick to get readership (or even actual content)

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sedev
'Shameless self-promotion' is both (a) what Mr. Calacanis _does_ and (b) an
essential skill for entrepreneurs in general. So I'm actually not willing to
ding him for that - he is doing something very normal in two senses.

~~~
urbanjunkie
when "shameless self promotion" leads many smart people to think you're a dick
then that's not an essential skill for entrepreneurs.

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jonnathanson
"Expertise" is relative, of course, depending on how much value someone might
extract from it versus the value they might extract from other sources
ostensibly covering the same topic. It also depends on context.

And I'd argue that static content by experts isn't going to be sufficient in
the world we're headed to. Eventually, nearly all the knowledge in every known
domain will be accessible to almost anyone. In such a world, the expert's
value is only partially based on the quality or depth of his knowledge; it's
rooted more deeply in his ability to synthesize the existing knowledge rapidly
and innovatively, or to generate new knowledge. (Having a massive library is
almost less important than knowing which shelf holds the book you're looking
for at any given time, and in this sense, domain/subject expertise will still
be highly valuable). Domain experts won't disappear, because acquiring mastery
of a subject involves countless hours of practice or study. But as far as the
consumer web is concerned, "expertise" is going to become a fuzzy and highly
relative target.

If anything, I think the future of blogging (if not publishing altogether)
will shift intellectual capital away from "experts" and toward innovators and
creators: people who aren't just treasure troves of knowledge, but who can
apply that knowledge in fascinating and creative ways.

Perhaps I'm quibbling over the semantics of the word "expert." But it's a word
we should quibble over, because it's been a buzzword for quite some time now,
and no two people seem to agree on what it means to them. That, in and of
itself, is very interesting.

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gaius
_In such a world, the expert's value is only partially based on the quality or
depth of his knowledge_

That's not even remotely likely, and I think that's easy to prove. Go to any
bookstore and pick up a graduate level text on biology, or maths, or whatever.
You have all the knowledge right there in your hands! Now read a page, do you
understand it, can you apply it? Probably not. There is a lot more to most
fields than just an "API reference".

~~~
jonnathanson
With all due respect, I think you plucked one of my lines out of a healthy bit
of surrounding context -- much of which is in total agreement with you here. I
never said that domain expertise was going to be replaced or made obsolete
simply by having the raw information available to anyone.

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jschuur
I think he's just running with a very narrow definition of 'blogging'.

Blogging is WordPress, Blogspot, Tumblr, LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook and
any other number of mediums that lists posts of any length in reevrse
chronological order, be it for profit, fun, to educate or raise awareness.

Just because it's not all techies cranking out 10 paragraph quality posts
anymore doesn't mean it's dead. It's evolved.

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dkarl
_"There needs to be a better system for tuning down the stupid people and
tuning up the smart people."_

It's amusing that he used this image while criticizing other people's writing
and intelligence. Does he mean that stupid people are sharp and smart people
are flat? Or does he mean that smart people need some adjustments before they
can perform at their best? I know what he was searching for, but if you're
going to be a snob about writing, you'd better come prepared to express
yourself gracefully.

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wolfrom
Jason's point is valid no matter your opinion of Mahalo. Reputation may soon
be the most important determinant of the value of content, as opposed to
social indicators and in tandem with interest- or location-based relevance. We
already do this manually today. When I access Google News, I choose specific
news sources over others based on my understanding of their reputation for
accuracy and thoroughness.

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russell
Writing is a useful skill.. Stupid people who write may become less stupid.,
although having read the comments on such sites as Huffington post, I dont
hold a great deal of hope. But I say let them write. However, I would like to
see an IQ setting on my browser, so I could filter out any post with an
apparent IQ of less than, say, 130.

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nextparadigms
So only "elite" people should write then? Sometimes I wonder if there's
something truly wrong with Calcanis.

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saint-loup
Any headline including "X is dead" is even more likely to be wrong than one
ending with an exclamation mark.

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vaksel
typical link bait...bait the bloggers, so they write a scathing response...in
the process linking to Calcanis and Mahalo.

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Kwpolska
Calacanis is a stupid person, so he shouldn't write.

