“Whom the Gods would destroy, they first put on the cover of Business Week.”
-Paul Krugman
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I was speaking with a few other trader/blogger types (they best remain nameless so as to keep their jobs) and this interesting observation was made: It has been exactly one year ago today when a (mostly) fawning NY Magazine article on Zero Hedge came out: The Dow Zero Insurgency.
Since that article, argued one of the hedgies in the group, Zero Hedge has seen their influence wax, then wane. The incisive, no hold bars critiques of Goldman Sachs, HFT, regulatory failures and corporate excess seems to have gotten lost in a sea of conspiracy theories, standard gold bug rhetoric, and lots of C grade commentary.
What made the blog great — a singular expert voice (with a few supporting characters) that wrote with passion and insiders knowledge. But that voice seems to have gotten lost in a sea of supporting characters; the original proportions have been inverted.
Its not that the good stuff isn’t there — it is, if you hunt for it. Its just that it is now surrounded by so much other stuff it becomes challenging to locate. (It doesn’t help that lots of writers seem to publish under the name Tyler Durden) This seems to be the same challenge that many of the multi-author sites have — from Street.com to HuffPo to Seeking Alpha to Minyanville to Business Insider — they must wrestle with this issue on a daily basis. Can you produce more content but still maintain the level of intensity and passion when its a team, and not a single voice?
Whenever a narrow focus and intensity is replaced with an broader emphasis on well, nearly everything, must something get lost in the expansion? I still read ZH — but much less than I used to, now that the inmates have taken over the asylum.
Crowd Query: A what point does a blog jump the shark? Not just Zero Hedge, but The Big Picture, or boingboing or your favorite blog ___ here?
What say ye?
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UPDATE:September 28, 2010 6:12am
Zero hedge responds here.
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