Jason Calacanis: “No one is blocking anyone, no one is in a position of power, it’s flat”

Jason Calacanis: Noted:

Jeff has a great tag on exploding newspapers. I’ve been thinking about newspapers a lot since Dan Gillmor’s journalism event at Harvard 10 days ago. In another 18-24 months newspapers are gonna hit the bottom and I think I’m gonna swoop in and try and buy one, build out the online portion, and buy a local TV station to go with it. Newspapers are not dead, they just have another purpose in life. “I’m watching you” guys (say in DeNiro voice from Meet the Parents/Fockers while pointing the piece symbol into your eyes for extra effect :-).

Filled under “hello?!?!” — there is no A, B, or C list in the blogosphere people. There is your list, my list, and the entire list. No one is blocking anyone, no one is in a position of power, it’s flat… you can do whatever you want–stop crying about it and post something interesting.

Jay Rosen posted a comment about Philadelphia, to which I added (with minor edits):

Indeed, Philly is a place to be. I invited you to an unconference having to do with this a while back. I have hopes for great things.

On the “blogosphere is flat” myth, that was popped a long time ago by Clay Shirky, in the same piece in where he described the Long Tail of the web.

If you are a believer in the long tail concept, you gotta accept its core tenet – power laws present themselves on the web. Those in the head end get far, far more influence and attention then in the tail. And the tail is mighty long indeed. The flip side of “The Long Tail” is that this is perfectly acceptable. In fact, it represents an opportunity.

The web empowers niches – communities of interest – to flourish. You can target a niche in the tail and do well very well there. A consequence of having zero shelving space and technologies that make it easy for those seeking out their passions and concerns, no matter how out of the *current* mainstream, to find them.

I think you know this however, so why perpetuate the myth?