Posts tagged with blogging

In late 2010, rumors started to emerge that popular ESPN.com sports columnist Bill Simmons was planning a “top secret editorial project.” The initiative, shrouded in secrecy, was limited to rumors for several months, until talented writers suddenly started disappearing from popular blogs and websites.  Star writers at Vulture, Deadspin, and This Recording wrote goodbyes to their established readerships, claiming they were leaving to work for The Sports Guy. The sports and pop culture-focused site, to be named Grantland (after legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice), would be backed by ESPN, and attracted top sponsors in Subway, Lexus and Klondike. The site’s central concept would be to produce intelligent, entertaining takes on sports and pop-culture. It would do so by publishing almost exclusively long-form content, come to be known as “longreads.”

This past week The AdAge Digital Conference, Radian6 Social 2011 User Conference, Forrester’s Marketing Forum, and Hispanicize 2011 all took place. Each conference provided some great thoughts and insights from leaders in field, some interesting statistics and a few announcements of things to look forward to in the future.

Just over a week ago (August 13 - 16), nearly 2,000 progressive bloggers, activists, and organizers gathered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for 4 days.  And I was there.

It used to be the case that a big name star equaled box office returns, hence the outrageous salaries a-listers have recently received for their work, but with the ever-sharing, instantaneous environment of online communities, user reviews may be weighing heavy on the blockbuster golden boys and girls.