I took a peek at the Ad Age Power 150 for the first time in a while this morning. It’s great to see some blogs of real quality climbing the list. Some of my personal faves are David Armano’s Logic + Emotion, Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation and Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy by Jeremiah.However, more surprising to me was the fact I couldn’t find Seth Godin’s name near the top of the list. After a bit of a scroll, I was amazed to find that Godin, for so long king of the blogosphere, had slipped to number 89. What gives?
Seth Godin is a blogging pioneer. He has been churning out his commonsense nuggets every day for the best part of a decade. He publishes a book a year, most of which become bestsellers. He is the unanimous first choice any aspiring author has to write on their bookjacket.
Why then such a big slide? After all, in the realm of blogosphere clout, Godin has few peers.
Godin’s slide is indicative of the macro blogging environment. There are plenty of great thinkers out there, and on the web there are few gatekeepers keeping great ideas locked up. As such, Seth's slide in the AdAge rankings is not so much a decline of his influence as the rise of everyone else’s.
A particularly apt analogy here comes from the Oliver Stone Film film Any Given Sunday. In a pivotal scene, Coach Tony D’Amato is telling overnight quarterback sensation Willie Beamen he will be benched when veteran Cap Rooney returns from injury. He’s having trouble persuading Beamen that Rooney’s track record of success means he is an automatic start until he hits him with an irrefutable truth, “Sure Willie, you kicked ass, but Cap Rooney’s been doing it for years.”
Seth Godin is the Cap Rooney of the blogosphere – an enduring champion, a source of inspiration to others, more importantly a leader that makes those around him better. Bloggers of all stripes become better because of him.
