This morning, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, amid news and rumors that some blog networks are raising millions of dollars in funding, said that with more to lose in the blogging business, these funded networks are going to get more aggressive, not just in focusing on content, but also on politics, picking fights when necessary. But most interestingly to me, he stated he would like to be part of a proverbial "Dream Team" of bloggers, who if aligned and focused, could take down more established, traditional, media.In his widely-referenced piece, Arrington said he has been, of late, trying to promote "young but promising" bloggers, specifically mentioning Silicon Alley Insider, CenterNetworks, Mathew Ingram, and me, by name. He wrote, "these guys rarely agree with me, but when they talk I listen because they've put some thought into what they are saying and how they are saying it."
The combination of these two messages in his story led one colleague to tell me over breakfast this morning, "His article made it sound like he was recruiting you - in public."
A fun idea, to be sure, and far-fetched. But not completely impossible.
Bloggers, even those not raising funds, find friends and create informal networks. SheGeeks Joined Grand Effect today, a small tech blog network, including Sarah Perez of Sarah In Tampa. Closer to home, MG Siegler of ParisLemon, Steven Hodson of WinExtra, Jason Kaneshiro of Webomatica, Fredric Lardinois of The Last Podcast and I often refer to ourselves as "The B-List", jokingly mocking our non-elite status. When not linking to each other or leaving comments on our blogs, we're trading e-mail, or monitoring one another's FriendFeed. There's no money in it, and if we formed a network, we probably couldn't raise enough cash to keep the lights on for a month.
But others who are true A-Listers, if that term carries muster, might be on Arrington's short list for what could be the next media empire. And while he set CNET as the target to take down, I'd say that's aiming too low. If Arrington really is interested in taking resumes from aggressive, well-written bloggers, and is answering his phone to calls from potential applicants, it could be little time until the TechCrunch Dream Team starts blocking shots from the rest of the upstarts like an underpowered Angola 1992 squad.
I just want to know who he has in mind.