He had me until the last two paragraphs...
"The a-list died because we’re tired of them and their incessant drama and posturing for attention...."
"The a-list died because guys like Loren Feldman exposed them...."
These two comments smell of the constant jealousy I see from the NON-A-Listers. As for Feldman, he's just realized that it's easier to get attention by burning down a barn than building one.
I like the rest of the post and think it has great merit. - ScottBourne
Oh delicious irony... The only reason I just read that was because two of my 'A-List' heroes, Mr Bourne and Mr Scoble, brought it to my attention on FriendFeed... mmm thats tasty! - John Worthington
Thanks for the promotion John but I'm hardly an A-Lister. Scoble - absolutely. He still has large influence as do all the "A-listers." But I do think that the time is coming soon when everyone will be an A-lister. I don't agree that the A-List is dead. I just think everyone else will soon be invited to join in and be part of that list. - ScottBourne
I don't think the A-list is dead, it's just less exclusive because of the new communication tools available. The A-list will probably get bigger, making each individual member less dominant, but it will still exist. - Kevin Bondelli
Scott, I agree that everyone is now getting the chance to become an A-Lister. But an A-Lister in what? I think the author may have missed a point slighty. It's not that I have a shot at becoming well know and respected, it's I can now choose to filter out those people or subjects that do not intrest me. I do regard you as an A-Lister in the rhelm of photography, Mac, certainly iPhones and podcast creation but to someone else that may not be the case. Social media has empowered chioce. - John Worthington
And certainly the fact people like you and Robert haven't had to play all the 'corporate' games and have the power over your own brands and content has allowed far more genuine and personal relationship to form with the people who areintrested and trust your opinions. - John Worthington
If they A-List is not yet dead, it is certainly becoming less important as blogging and social media normalize and more people use them as part of their personal and business life. While each day, Scoble's followers may still rise, the growth of social media is such that rises faster, giving Scoble a smaller share of the whole universe every day. - shelisrael1
Purely from the outsider perspective, why are some folks getting so up in arms about this? Isn't it a good thing to have more voices in the mix? More channels in which more can contribute their thoughts and ideas. So far, Robert whom I have yet to "meat" in the RW, has come across to me as a pretty decent person. - Mathew A. Koeneker
I'm not in the A-list because my last name does not begin with the letter 'A'. Let's all just move on from this nonsense, shall we? - Akiva Moskovitz
No matter what the medium, some people will get more attention than others. It was true when George Washington entered the doors of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it's true today when (insert name here) writes a blog post, and it will be true in 2727 when Miraloma Xanadu sends her brain waves to the Bigg Sstar. Perhaps the new technologies may accelerate the turnover of names on the A list, but the technologies won't change humans' basic nature; we'll always consider a few people as "experts" who must be heard. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
Miraloma Xanadu is totally overrated. She conspired to get me fired off Space Dock 13 and has been ganging up on me ever since. - Kevin Bondelli
@Ontario: Miraloma will have to use brainwaves in 2727 cause Twitter still won't work by then... :P - John Worthington
I'm with Kevin. Miraloma Xanadu is a hack. She still owes me 2.7 gigacredits from that time she "forgot" her chips and I had to buy her lunch. She's not that interesting in RL. Heck, she's not that interesting on the net, either. And don't get me started on her B2B (brain-to-brain) show. ugh. - Harvey Simmons
Jim makes excellent points. I don't see it as a negative but a need to simply evolve as conversations and influence become increasingly mobile. While it is true that everyone has the potential to have reach not all will become thought leaders or influencers. Everyone can present themselves as an expert but not everyone has expertise. - Karen Swim
The contention that there is no more A-list can be proven (more or less) mathematically. It is generally accepted (though not universally) that the blogosphere (and Hollywood, and most social networks) are scale-free networks -- meaning, the network has an A-list and a "long tail." If you count the nodes in the network and the number of connections per node, you can identify which nodes are in the A-list and which nodes are in the tail. - Karim
A large part of A-list authority involves *access*, to people making news, new products in the pipeline and simple geographic proximity (Silicon Valley) to the center of gravity. That won't change very quickly. - Sprague D
If the author is saying "the A-list is dead," he is saying one of two things: either the nodes in the A-list have changed -- and networks change all the time, nodes gain and lose connections, this is no surprise -- or, he is saying the network is no longer a *scale-free* network, it is a flat network, the A-list doesn't exist at all. The first contention is common sense. It can be established quantifiably. The second contention seems less likely. - Karim
Circle jerk. The blind leading the blind. A herd of independent minds. Strong and original minds usually do not clump together in conclaves of mutual navel-gazing. (Btw, some of the A-listers ARE strong and independent minds. A-listedness was thrust upon them; they didn't seek it out.) - Sean McBride
Jim Kukral might have pronounced the A-list as dead, but sometimes reports of something's death are exaggerated. ;-) Robert Scoble might be saying "about time," but it seems to me he does a good job of hopping on new social networks, gobbling up connections to other nodes. Except for maybe Plurk. heh - Karim
I'm calling BS and linkbait. There will always be an A-list. As humans, we are incapable of existing without instituting some sort of royalty. And for every person who stared at Scoble with dead eyes, I heard "Hey Robert!" just as often (mind you, that wouldn't have happened HERE, for instance, but I took it as normal in the abnormal world of California). - Cyndy
@Sean, not that I'm disagreeing with you ;-) but in the human population, what is the distribution of "strong and original minds?" :-D - Karim
Karim: .01%? In any case, as a rule they don't tend to get too cozy with one another. - Sean McBride
who defines this a-list you speak of? - .LAGizmoto
@LAG, we do. Through our reading/following behavior. - Sprague D
It's like the Supreme Court said about porn, you know an A-lister when you see one. For example, Scoble is obviously A-list because there are 21 comments to him saying three words. - Kevin Bondelli
One can quibble over the methods of definition. How do you determine the most popular songs in any given week? Store purchases? Radio airplay? Legal downloads? Illegal downloads? We've been working on that problem for decades. I don't think there's a consensus on how to measure the A-list (reads? links? mentions in Google? mentions on Truemors?), or what the boundary is between A-list and B-list. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
so it's like the 'cool kids' table in the cafeteria back in high school? and like that table, outside of the school walls, it didn't mean much to anyone else? - .LAGizmoto
Ontario, yes, the demarcation is somewhat arbitrary -- it could just as well be "Top 97" or "Top 103" instead of "Top 100" -- but it seems a bit like the author might have been saying there was NO TOP. First he says "it's dying," then he changes his mind and says no wait, it's dead, it's been *eliminated.* That means there is no A-list, and that young Billie Jean Schmuckington's compilation of her favorite LOLcats carries just as much weight as Scoble. :-D - Karim
.LAG, yes, it's exactly like that. Usually when you talk about network effects, you constrain the discussion to a specific network. That was one problem with the article -- was the author talking about blogs? Or FriendFeed? Or Facebook? Or the Intarwebs in general? Different networks will have different A-lists. The lunch table A-list probably doesn't matter much on FriendFeed, and vice versa. - Karim
I keep leaving a comment on the post, but then it disappears. Main points were: Blogosphere growing up is a good thing, but the A-list isn't going to die, just weaken. - David Cohn
I'm holding down the Green list...we just use colors now that the alphabets taken up - Brian Ries
