Each was huge for me. I must have strutted around for ages.

It's easy to forget. It's also easy to forget what the motivation is, amongst my "growing up" as a blogger. I worry more about traffic. Influence. Cash than I ever have before. I'm not sure it affects what I post, how often I post or the quality of my posts but it's definitely a change.

But yeah, the half million blogs getting 100 visitors a day are definitely more important than the top 1000 getting 1-100K visitors/day. Because that's where the ideas start. With the masses.

Then one day Kevin Drum linked to a post on my site and I got 650 visitors in 18 hours.

I had thought I was doing pretty well, traffic wise, until then. Now I know how pathetic my traffic is and I have to say, it makes me wonder why I bother trying to have a blog that does more than help my sister in Italy keep up with my personal news. I know I'm not the most insightful or the snarkiest. I don't have the specialized POV of an Orcinus or a Juan Cole. I suppose I should be grateful that I have an audience at all, and not get hung up on wanting more traffic.

But yeah, it does bug me a bit that my traffic is so pathetic.

My own situation, as an fair example; I'm tied to AdSense.. I've even seen SUPPORT JOHN KERRY ads on my own site.

If there's a conflict, there, it's that the ads are conflicting with MY message... rather than the reverse.

And it's not like I'm making piles of money... the clickthrough rate ends up making me about $0.25/month, at the moment. I'm just thinking that situation will shift after the election.

Blogs just aren't like that.

Big Media also has the problem of corporatization to contend with. Pitch Parent's products. Mustn't have anything too controversial, must we? Might reflect badly on Parent. Parent's management is worried about the bottom line—time to wring out some more of the news staff. Guess that means we won't have the resources to fact-check that story now, doesn't it?

Blogs are a long way from that point.

James Joyner have a lengthy piece on the subject that is worthy of a read. I concur with his basic thesis that the basic of blogging...

As such anyone in the 'hot 100' would seem to MY eye to qualify as an 'A-lister'...

And your comments about the amount of time it takes to set up any kind of posting vlume is certainly true-- I often find it a stuggle. And I've come to wonder about the quality vs quantity issue, insofar as capturing readers, and keeping them coming back.

Overall blog traffic has exploded since I started doing this in February 2003. Still, the number of sites that are going to get huge readership is simply limited. If nothing else, because most people just don't have the time to create enough content on their own to get a huge daily readership.

The clear implication of your first quote is that blogs because they're being 'domesticated'... we bloggers no longer to be taken seriously. Sounds rather suspiciously like a last gasp defense against an attacker they clearly don't understand.

(Aside; I find the choice of the word 'domesticated' interesting...given the historically testy relationship between the bloggers and the MSM. This description was perhaps more apt than the writer knew... as such a procces generally involves the subject peeing only on the newspaper... .)

As for where the A-list is, I suppose a reasonable palce to start would be the TTLB list, at the first two or three levels of being. Which, I note with some irony ties rather neatly into Kevin Drum's comments about not noting much change in the a-listers and their output.

I must admit being a bit torn on your comments re: Power line and their popularity. while it's true, the press coverage resulting from Rathergate took Powerline's hitcounters to the next level (along with CQ, BFB, and so on) I submit that Powerline was positioned to BE noticed.... being already on or near the A-list, if you will.

There seems a similarly between this and other 'sell-out' complaints in the past. The over-riding theme in the objections seems to be an anger surrounding the commercial success of blogdom, at least insofar as there HAS been success. (As you point out, most aren't in it for the money...) An underlying anger with monetary success, and the claim that such succes makes one's efforts less valid has long been a staple complaint in the arsenal of the left. (What happened to 60's and 70's rock bands that became popular? Genesis, as an example) They suppsoedly 'sold out' as a pre-req to their success. Sorry, I don't buy that, even when the music was demonstrably changing over the time period under discussion.

I find it hard to take such complaints about bloggers seriously... particulalry when I'm not seeing even the degree of change music critics were complaining of just a short while ago...

More particularly yet, do I find it hard to swallow when the MSM has so much to lose if the meme of 'success spoiling the blogger' wasn't so critiical to the success of the MSM maintaining their power.

Finally, I note with some amusement Kos' comments about bloggers with ~100 HPD being....the essence of the blogosphere -- and those guys, collectively, reach a lot more than Daily Kos does. While 100 daily visitors may seem shrimpy, it's pretty darn impressive to build an audience that size. When I hit that milestone, I remember thinking, "Damn, I couldn't even fit that many people in my house!" Now it's seen as a sign of failure, and that's just bullshit.

As someone whose blog has been at a level slightly above that for nearly a year, now, I find that to be strangely reassuring.... particularly given the numbers of things Kos and I rather stoutly disagree on. He's given so much bad advice on his blog, I can't help but wonder if I'm not off base on my perception of this being a GOOD comment.