by Ethan Johnson
August 22, 2006

Spend any amount of time in the so-called "blogosphere", and invariably the term "A-List" will arise. In short, an "A-Lister" is someone who is either held in high regard, or is famous for any number of reasons. In discussing the A-List, it is clear that A-Listers are believed to enjoy certain benefits above and beyond "Z-Listers" (notice that we jump from A right to Z - Hollywood is apparently more equitable in this regard). Unfortunately, I am not quite sure what yardstick is being used in dubbing anyone an "A-Lister". In this article, I will ennumerate and examine the qualities that define the "A-List". Yeah, you may want more coffee. Here are jump links to skip ahead to your area of interest:

What is the "A-List"?
The Trouble With A-Lists
So You Wanna Be An A-Lister
Conclusion

What is the "A-List"?

In Hollywood parlance, the "A-List" consists of whoever the hottest stars are at any given moment, with certain stars receiving this treatment regardless of output. Steve Martin calls the A-List "names above the title". Examples: Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts. Steve Buscemi, while a fine actor, is more of a "B-List" guy, in that he's not a "headliner", he's more of a "utility" or "ensemble" actor. The "Z-List" means you just got off the bus from Iowa and you're ready to be a star! After these porn movies and restaurant gigs.

In blogging terms, the A-List is fairly malleable. I would have said that the A-List is defined by the Technorati 100. But other lists exist, and worse, not everyone who is called an A-Lister resides on any known "Top" lists. This is partly because of Power Law dynamics, where the big head/long tail shifts in response to the question: Zamfir is an "A-List" panflute player. (Although I think it's fair to say that this may be the first time ever the words "Zamfir" and "A-List" appeared in the same sentence, in the affirmative.) Zamfir - if he blogs - is a Z-List blogger in the aggregate, but again would be an A-List blogger specifically among panflute bloggers. Got it?

Another definition of an A-Lister is someone without whom no discussion on a given topic would be considered definitive. Philo T Farnsworth simply must be mentioned in the larger discussion about television, as he invented it. Same with Marconi and radio. A variant on this would be someone who is "passionate" about a given topic and is considered to be an "authority" on the subject. Again, depending on the question, A-List "passion" ranges from Kathy Sierra for user experience to Jeff Jarvis for media criticism.

An A-Lister may leverage his or her standing with the brand equity of a particular company or organization. Robert Scoble partly leveraged Microsoft's brand equity (until he quit in 2006), and Amanda Congdon was synonymous with Rocketboom until her replacement a few months ago (which came as a shock to many, who apparently thought that Rocketboom IS Amanda Congdon). Jeff Jarvis might be rightly accused of leveraging Dell's brand equity in posting his various harangues about the company.

And last, an A-Lister may be a cross-over from another milieu. Arianna Huffington has years of political "street cred" that she has since parlayed into blogging. Wil Wheaton is known for his work on Star Trek. Doc Searls has years of media and technology industry experience.

The Trouble With A-Lists

A-Listers are viewed (and/or accused) as "gatekeepers", ostensibly filtering out (or actively/passively promoting) Z-Listers. In theory, this can't actually happen because the blogosphere, if not the internet at large is a borderless, undefined virtual space that cannot prevent subversion because there are far too many points of entry. Kind of like trying to "protect" the southern US border with 15 people. However, where there is data, there is analysis, and therefore Top 100 lists are fairly easy to generate based on traffic numbers, contextual mentions, and so forth. This in turn, again, depending on the question, means that certain bloggers will be listed in the critical first five to ten Google search results. If CNN needed an expert on say, user experience for an on-air segment, and you were an A-Lister on that subject, your phone will soon be ringing (or equivalent). It is this "visibility begets opportunity" dynamic that seems to fuel the most distrust and flat-out envy of real or imagined A-Listers.

One way that A-Listers can squelch Z-Listers is to simply refuse to link contextually to the Z-Lister in question, and allow inbound traffic to pool up and flow away in such a way as to pollenate public opinion with the A-Lister's POV. (In short, citing is good, being cited is better.) In theory, the Z-Lister can write a contrary blog post and provide an alternative version of the story, but if nobody is made aware of its existence, or are disinclined to do any research beyond receiving a sound byte, the A-Lister effectively shuts out opposing or alternate viewpoints by essentially exercising a pocket veto. Such a dynamic is usually referred to as a bully pulpit, where the A-Lister can reach large numbers of people in an instant, whereas the Z-Lister relies on being "advertised" by these traffic hubs to draw comparable numbers.

A-List criticism is heavily centered around the muddy question of "fairness" or "deserving". In showbiz terms, if a kid gets picked up for an Oscar-winning movie, and played a tow-headed boy, the phone will ring with more "tow-headed boy" roles, to the exclusion of other capable (and perhaps more talented) actors. In internet terms, the "resident expert" gets all of the calls/opportunities (allegedly - I am not citing this as fact), and may or may not choose to scrape the plate and provide opportunities to other subject-matter experts. Where is the resident expert found? Why, on the A-List, of course.

So You Wanna Be An A-Lister

I am certainly not a living and breathing embodiment of an "A-Lister". I can't guarantee that any of these attributes, properly harnessed and mastered, will make you an A-List sensation. But I have observed the following in the A-List crowd (in whole or in part), make of this list what you will:

Visibility: First and foremost, A-Listers are visible. They attend parties, conferences, meetings, conference calls, whatever. Thay also make the rounds online and can be pretty voracious about haunting comments boxes and providing a strong web presence. They're available via email, by Skype, smoke signals, whatever. More established A-Listers are more reserved, and prefer that the traffic comes to them, not the other way around. A-Listers may land TV gigs, speaking engagements, and book deals, in turn generating more interest, and more exposure. In short, always be promoting. (Bonus points if you can get others to do it for you.) "Attention" ties in with this point, so I'll lump them together. If you can be visible and command attention, jackpot.

Personality: The majority of A-Listers are known as people first, however some fit the definition of demagogue. Certain A-List sites are more topic-driven, such as Engadget or PostSecret. But the topics have mass appeal, or more to the point, mass internet appeal. Which means tech or politics. Not knitting, unless you can really raise the roof with your mad knitting skillz. Usually this means being an A-List knitblogger and a Z-List blogger. Personality is also a function of punditry.

Thought Leadership: Who cares what you think about computers? Unless you're Bill Gates, then ears perk up. This seems to be the Holy Grail of A-List aspirations: If enough people value your opinion, and you can influence people to act (or not) based on those opinions, you're golden. Advertisers want to talk to you. CNN is calling to get your expert opinion. Publishing houses want you to write all about whatever's on your mind. Watch Pink Floyd: The Wall and notice the concert scenes in the final third of the movie. The singer points left, and the audience follows suit. Right. Turn and point. That's thought leadership.

Money: Face it, going to all of these conferences and parties costs money. Ideally someone else's (see my comments on "brand equity" above), or your own if you can write it off as a business expense. If you are indeed independently wealthy, and better yet, you did it by running/selling a successful business, that's golden too. I like to half-joke that the difference between being interesting and a dullard is 2 billion dollars.

Talent: This gets muddy. If nothing else, a knack for self-promotion is a must. You can sing like a cat being strangled, you can draw like a spastic gorilla, you can turn everything you touch into moose turds, but if you can somehow keep everyone's attention focused on you while you're doing it, you win. Of course, if you're actually talented in some other area, that's a huge plus. But without the self-promotion gene, hello obscurity. (See "Visibility" above.)

Luck: Yes, luck does play a role, believe it or not. I cite PostSecret as an example of this as I don't believe the intent was to make the "A-List", but it happened anyway. "Dear Raed" was another "lightning strikes" moment where the blogger was uh, lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Insofar as anyone living in Iraq is "lucky". Finally, and this is a contentious one but I'll say it anyway, Dooce is an example of having a blog name enter the lexicon as a substitute for a longer phrase, in this case "fired for blogging" became "Dooced" (with a link to Dooce for context). Nothing to plan for, as such, but if it happens, hello A-List.

Longevity: One word: Zeldman. And don't get me wrong, he is an amazing guy and I have been very fortunate to receive his tutelage when I sought it out. (He does it for lots of people, but still.) If you want a poster boy for "paying yer dues", Zeldman is it. See "being integral to the topic at hand" above. Other A-Listers have been banging out text long before "blog" entered the lexicon. Another aspect of longevity is to produce something essentially timeless. Clay Shirky's essay on power laws will fade away about 10 minutes before the Sun flickers out. See "luck" above.

Gimmicks: This can get you on the A-List, but not necessarily until Doomsday. Something Awful has Photoshop Phriday (among other recurring features), Hugh MacLeod has business card cartoons, One Red Paperclip has well, one red paperclip (well, did, anyway). See "luck", "visibility", and "talent" above. Additionally, the system can be gamed for any amount of time by conspiring to stuff the ballot box in favor of a given site. If there really isn't any interest in the site after the vote-rigging, it will slide back into Z-List obscurity in time.

Community: This actually falls under "gimmicks" more often than not. The goal is site traffic. If a de facto web forum breaks out in your comments section, do nothing to stop this and everything to encourage it. Report your boosted traffic numbers to the nearest advertiser (or other interested third party who equates "worth" with "traffic"). Collect. Repeat. This is not to pigeonhole all "communities" as cynical traffic boosters for the site owner. But it happens, and wherever stats can be reported to one's strategic advantage, 9 times out of 10 they will be. "Community" can also provide an echo chamber effect, where in some cases fans of the blog create "repeater" blogs that aggregate and redistribute content in a manner that games the ranking system (see "Gimmicks" above). More commonly, bloggers of a feather tend to link to each other, and anyone wanting to be part of the "in crowd" clones the topical blogroll to signal that association. The BlogHer blogroll is one example of this formally being institutionalized, as opposed to by osmosis.

Relevance (or "Signal"): This is another muddy area. The root concept is that your content is so useful and invaluable that it's an involuntary motor response for everyone to either add your site URL to their blogroll or bookmark/feed list. However, this is not a guarantee of A-List status. Political bloggers Duncan Black and Glenn Reynolds are (in)famous for blockquoting a news item and providing "heh" and "indeedy" as their value-added two cents. WIIFM is the name of the game, and the question is, how is it measured, and how can you provide it? Some people value useful information, others like to argue, others tune in to check out what "incredibly stupid" thing you're going to say next. Different strokes, etc.

Conclusion

Essentially, my mantra regarding the A-List and aspirations of same is to advise the seeker to consider why making the list is so important. I don't mean this dismissively. Review the list of traits that I have pulled together and decide if this sounds like the sort of game you were born to play. Can one be successful and not be on the A-List? Can one live a fulfilling life in obscurity? Does "A-List" status, especially in internet terms, necessarily confer tangible benefits? Whose interests are served by propogating the belief that the A-List is either good or bad? Is success, in your terms, possible without being on the A-List? How about probable?

Remember the punchline in Silence of the Lambs: We covet the things that we see every day. (See "Visibility" above.)

Of course, even though this is the only definitive guide to the A-List of its kind, and will live forever alongside the works of Aeschylus and Clay Shirky, if you take issue with any of the points here please write impassioned blog posts about it and link to this page, so uh, I can, uh, track the conversation. Oh, and tag your posts "ethan+johnson+is+my+king" so people can find them easily. And click my NonSense boxes so my advertisers know that you value their sponsorship. Thanks! <EM>