100 Blogs To Leave Your Lover

Open Letter to Jason Calacanis
CC: David Sifry, Malcolm Gladwell, The Teamsters, Michael Musto, Rupert Murdoch, Houston, Robert Blake, Page Six, Rafael Palmiero, the chick who does the Hermitude in NYC blog, Citizens for a Drug-Free America, Jessica Alba's butt, Mr. Goodwrench, Human Resources
Re: Perhaps a Regular Feature

I read your thoughts on creating the "Blog 500" (does anyone else see the huge sponsorship potential with NASCAR on this? think people, THINK!) to rank the top performing, influential, etc sites and I was amused on several levels. First, let's parse this one out:

"Some background: Having created what became an absurdly powerful 100 list with my last company, Silicon Alley Reporter, I’ve seen the controversy, venom, and power such lists can create."

Absurd is right. I was at Jupiter Research (also iVillage for a short, hazy spell) in those days and while we were full of more shit than a cow field laced with laxatives, SAR was the litter box lining we used for this scruffy pup named Sheffie. (You don't wanna know...but it's much, much worse than you can imagine.) Salon even took the time to mock the artificial sweetener you sprinkled on these lists and began the article with the classic, "Once a year, Jason McCabe Calacanis makes enemies in Silicon Alley." Only ONCE A YEAR back then?? It's encouraging to see how you've done a fine job of "getting the numbers up" since then. (I kid, I kid...but do I? Yeah...I think so.)

I realize your opinionated SAR list is very different then this proposal of blog meritocracy, but god knows they share one thing: they're only of interest to insider weenies while the rest of us who carry the ad-free flag couldn't give a shit. Maybe even 500 shits if you give us enough chili and time. But let's hope that's all they have in common. It would be a shame to see the Blog 500 suffer the same fate of those SAR 100 beauties.

BTW, what ever happened to that iron-clad prediction of the Digital Coast pulling a tsunami on the canals of Silicon Alley? It's a shame it didn't pan out, we really could use the water now.