Recent Blog Entries
80/20 And The Design Blogosphere
Written by Scrivs on September 19, 2005
Oh how quickly the landscape of the Web changes in 17 months. On April 14, 2004, Cameron Moll wrote 80/20 and the design blogosphere that included a list of the 20 “influencers” so to speak in the design community. The list was:
- Jeffrey Zeldman
- Dan Cederholm
- Todd Dominey
- Dave Shea
- Jason Fried
- Douglas Bowman
- Mark Pilgrim
- John Gruber
- Greg Storey
- Andrei Herasimchuk & 19. Donna Driscoll
- Jeffrey Veen
- Eric Meyer
- Jon Hicks
- D. Keith Robinson
- Andy Budd
- Shaun Inman
- Jason Kottke
- Didier Hilhorst & 20. Dan Rubin
Why bring up this list? Well besides showing you that the top 20 of anything changes quickly on the Web I also like to see the fact that the 80/20 is becoming more and more like the 80/80 (which will soon be the 100/infinity…whoops it already is like that). The idea that the web is becoming flat with regards to how information is spread is not a new idea, but I think many people are still caught up in the top blogger notion. Yes some blogs receive a large amount of traffic over others, but that doesn’t mean the information comes from them was writtent there first.
In the list above how many of those blogs are still active? How many of them still produce relevent and timely content? How many of them would you put in your top 20 favorite sites or resources on the web?
Part of the 9rules Network philosophy was born from the fact that there is no longer an 80/20 rule on the web. Sure many will continue to create lists and quantify the web, but that’s because it makes them comfortable. We are not trying to create the next A-List. We are just trying to create chances.
Should we have gone after the 20 people in the list? That would have helped us greatly with regards to traffic and exposure, but would that have fit in with our philosophy of finding great content on the web? Are we creating superstars that will one day sit atop the A-List of people who make lists? Who knows, maybe, but that’s more up to the writers of the sites than us.
We are connectors. We connect writers to other writers, writers to readers and soon advertisers to writers (if they want us to of course). We do this because we know that rules are meant to be broken and that lists will always be changing.
September 19th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
That’s the challenge isn’t it. With the constant flux that the web is in, it’s a practical impossibility to quantify any definitive list of anything. Which is why Google’s “order from chaos” approach makes so much sense. You type in “CSS” today and get a completely different set of results than you would have last week.
September 20th, 2005 at 9:26 am
I have a feeling I’m number 22 or 23. How can we see the next five or ten names on that list?
September 20th, 2005 at 9:28 am
Pauly, you barely make 22 or 23 on the 9r list how do you expect to make it to 22 on that one?
September 21st, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Speaking of which, where in the hell is my 9R royality check?
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:46 am
Interesting take, Scrivs. If I’ve understood correctly, you’re suggesting the 9rules Network provides opportunities for the #21+ writers to gain exposure they might not otherwise garner. Probably rightly so.
Though the idea of a *personalized* 80/20 — from the perspective of the reader — is likely still relevant, regardless of my original list. I personally don’t have enough time in the day to stay current with hundreds of sites. I still look to a few dozen to keep me current on trends and news. And that was the original intent in penning the list.
Who are the top 20 today? I’m not positive a global list along those lines is even all that important now, but I’m certain each of us as readers still has our own 80/20 list…
September 24th, 2005 at 4:33 am
With the exception of a few, I think they are mostly all still blogging. And with the exception of my somewhat random posts about chairs, mobile phones and iPods, I still think most of them are producing interesting stuff, albeit it with less regularity than when they started.
However that is the nature of blogging really. isn’t it? Most people can only sustain such a high level and quality of posting for a couple of years, before people run out of steam and real world time constraints raise their ugly head.
I remember when you first started blogging you had a huge output (phnar phnar), most of which was at a very high level. However, things change and as people get busier, either volume or quality tends to slip.
September 26th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
I tend to get overwhelmed by the amount of good quality sites out there. I stick with about 50 regular reads and if I add a new one I must remove one or I go crazy.
More and more I am coming to 9rules to find the new quality sites.
September 26th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
I’m sure I have my own 80/20 list floating around somewhere in my head, but I haven’t really quantified it. I’d like to say I intentionally avoiding doing so, but that’s not really the case.
I am sure, however, that I would have a much easier time gettign my work done throughout the day, were my RSS readers not overflowing with all the amazing content being fired at my head by 9rules. You’ve made me very happy, and very unproductive.
October 3rd, 2005 at 3:00 am
[...] on Monday, October 3rd, 2005
A couple of weeks ago, Paul Scrivens posted the 80/20 And The Design Blogosphere piece, which has its origin in a post by Cameron [...]