"Well as someone who holds an MFA in music performance I'd argue that "ability to create art that resonates with people" is the same thing as "nichespertise". That is to say: I am conflating these two things in my mind already ;-) Also agree that there is opportunity for "unproven underdogs" but bootstrapping authority and readership when you have nothing else to build on is extremely difficult; it's rare that people execute. Said yet another way: there are thousands of unproven underdogs (in music/art, for example) that deserve wider attention, start blogging, have great things to say...and don't get any traction. People need an additional reason to tune in besides "this content has merit". Maybe it's because of an insane stunt that they did, or because you want to network with them, or whatever. But in my experience, it's not a perfect meritocracy out there (insofar as "lobbing content out onto the web" is the extent of the strategy)." - Ethan Bauley