In a world where reality TV mints new mini-celebrities by the dozens every month, the question has been raised: what is the value of a blogger? Robert Soble responds to a post by Don Dodge:
“Here’s a question for Don: would you have invested $5 million in Howard Stern? How about Oprah Winfrey? Martha Stewart? Rush Limbaugh? Jon Stewart? Back when those five people were nobodies?”
I didn’t find Scoble’s comments too persuasive, its easy to pick the top celebrities in the world as examples. However, he redeemed himself with a follow up, and took a very interesting angle: he refutes the idea that a blogger would need a huge audience in order to have financial value:
“I know of a conference that charges $10,000 (or more) to get on stage to talk to about 700 people. Not a huge audience. But they always seem to have a full deck of sessions.”
It is fascinating to watch people reinvent the wheel in debating the value of a new medium. Do we need to prove that someone who is well connected, charismatic, and able to attract a large audience will end up with financial backing? Media companies understand this intrinsically, which is why I am so surprised as to why so many are caught like deer in the headlights with blogging and other social media.