Tony Perkins' Always On Network has teamed up with the folks at Technorati to create an Open Media Top 100 list, honoring the Pioneers, Trendsetters, Practitioners, Toolsmiths and Enablers who've created the world of open or social media (which includes but extends beyond the blogosphere.) It's a solid list, but as I commented on the AO site:
I'm a little suspicious of lists like this, particularly when it comes to open or social media, where we're all trying hard to move beyond broadcast mode and engage in real dialogues. But that's the beauty of the medium--even a list of heavy hitters like this, to have any credibility in this space, has to open itself up to criticism.
I don't mean to sound churlish--I've learned a great deal from some of the folks on this list, and I respect their contributions immensely. But the essence of open/social media is its emphasis on (small "d") democratic access and the innumerable conversations that result.
Even as we pay our respects to the people who've made all this possible, we should resist the impulse to see them as broadcasters and remain determined to put their tools to our own ends.
I feel strongly about this, so it was nice to see Tony Perkins himself post a follow-up comment: "We agree with you, Ed." I do respect the folks on that list, and I read quite a few of them regularly, but the real significance of this medium is the opportunity for all of us to jump into the fray, find people talking about similar issues, and engage them in conversations. We can and should take inspiration from the people who do it particularly well, but we shouldn't ever just sit back and turn into an audience listening to broadcasts, whether they're coming from media corporations or from the "Top 100."
UPDATE: Great posts on The List by the guys at infOpinions, David Parmet, and Jeremy Pepper. Also an interesting follow-on comment at the AO page by tpmclaughlin:
I agree with poster Ed [Hey, that's me!]. The value of good blogs is their evanescence: intense conversations that flare up, generate much heat and not a little light, and then disappear forever.
As with a floating crap game or dance party, it matters not where the event takes place. It's about the network, not the blogger.
I can't disagree with any of the above, and I love Jeremy's idea of the Next 100 (the Top 200?), i.e. sussing out the really good bloggers whose names don't sell magazines and thus don't get named to lists like this. But there's a weird tension here: we want blogging to catch on, we want people to find their voices online, we want this to be BIG...but we also want it to be Our Special Thing, and would all you Old Media types please take your money and go away?
We can't have it both ways. Of course Tony Perkins is trying to ride the hype and sell magazines, and so what? That's what he does, and that's the sort of attention any phenomenon attracts eventually. What to do? Well, we can use the attention Tony's focusing on this world to get more people and organizations blogging, we can work to insure that "open media" lives up to its promise and doesn't become just another broadcast medium, we can get more people reading the bloggers in Iran and China who are defending freedom of speech with their lives. For starters. So, yes, I have some skepticism about The List, but on balance, I can't say it's a bad thing.
