Link love and the cult of personality
October 16th, 2007 by Benjamin KuoIn one of my conversations with venture capitalists here in Southern California, the topic of “link love” came up — namely, the lack of it and lack of bloggers in Southern California. Browsing the list of “Top 100” blogs used by the site Techmeme–widely followed by the Silicon Valley crowd–I see very few folks who talk about Southern California technology companies. There’s the Jason Calacanis Weblog down there at number 60 (aside from his own startup Mahalo, I think Jason mentions bulldog puppies more than local tech companies), the Los Angeles Times at number 50 (skimpy So-Cal company coverage), and Paidcontent at number 13–probably the only site with decent coverage of companies here.
Who don’t I see ever mentioned on other blogs? Frank Peters with his tech focused podcast, the Frank Peters Show (latest interview with the winner of the TCVN’s Survivor program); Mark Averitt at OC VC; Matt Ridenour with his startup advice at Momentum Ventures (recent post: advice on managing an early stage business); or this recent posting from local entrepreneur Jared Reitzin on his 7am to 7:30pm work schedule. There just isn’t the level of cross-linking and cross-blog conversations you see in the wider blog world in the tech business-focused bloggers I am aware of here in Southern California.
I think (with the exception of a Jason Calanis or perhaps a Paul Kedrosky) there isn’t nearly the “tech celebrity” driven, slightly self-promotional postings from an evangelist like Guy Kawasaki; or the constant mentions of portfolio companies like you might see with a Brad Feld. What we need is someone like a Marc Cuban or Marc Andressen who gets lots of blog attention but happens to link to Southern California bloggers and companies.
October 18th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
[...] wondering why you haven’t been able to view comments, that’s why. (And this is after talking about the importance on linking between So-Cal [...]
October 19th, 2007 at 4:13 am
Ben,
One of the fundamental differences between Silicon Valley and the L.A. are is that Silicon Valley has “tech celebrities” and those that aspire to be one..whereas we have “real celebrities” and those that aspire to be one here. When I moved back to SoCal from Silicon Valley in ‘03, one of the jokes I liked to tell my friends in NorCal in describing the L.A. area was that while everyone in Silicon Valley seemingly walks around with a business plan in his or her back pocket they walk around with a script down here
Marc
October 19th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Quite true!