Jeremiah Owyang Speaks Out Against Top 2000 Bloggers Project

I’ve been out of the loop in the blogosphere the past few days due to my Mexican vacation. But I couldn’t keep myself away from the Web enough to stop checking out the blogs of some people I really respect.

Steve often asks the prominent bloggers we talk to whether or not they think that the so-called “A-list” is a self-reinforcing phenomenon. Because PageRank/Technorati Rank etc. are so tied up with existing levels of authority, and because A-listers seem to know and link to one another a great deal, it might be hard for a third wave adopted to break into the upper echelons of the blogosphere.

Jeremiah Owyang seems to concur with that philosophy. I respect him tremendously for speaking out about his objections to the Top 2000 bloggers initiative that Loic Le Meur lauded as a “cool initiative.”

The problem is that, as it spreads, the “top 2000″ collage basically turns into a link exchange that only benefits those already at the top.

I’m normally not a blogging purist. I don’t see the blogosphere as sacred, but I do very much enjoy the unfolding of a culture that revolves so much around conversation. All cultures have their objects of value, and in the online world, an inbound link is highly prized. Jeremiah is right to say that aggregations of links to top bloggers is an inflationary force on the value of an inbound link. But in all economies, we must also be aware that those with the most objects of value are best enabled to continually enrich themselves.

Still, I agree with Jeremiah that in this instance. Yes, top bloggers are going to get more inbound links because they are more widely read. That is a self-reinforcing elite group, just like the very wealthy. This is an organic phenomenon. Creating a collage of outbound links to the “top 2000″ bloggers is not organic, it’s pure link farming.