The Arrington Blogging Manifesto

Mike Arrington has gone off on a rant about the future of blogs and where all the value is being made or not made. He argues that the most efficient way to generate a lot of value is to roll-up a bunch of blogs into one massive network. The only problem is that the people he references are all talking about the same thing for the most part aside from Alley Insider who give a little more financial perspective within each of their posts.

The issue being brought up by Arrington makes a lot of sense though. Can the individual blogs expect significant valuations and quick exits if they over-value themselves from the get go? According to Arrington, Alley Insider is preparing to raise a round of funding for between $2 and $5 million. This would be one of the largest rounds for a blog in the past few years but given the site’s meteoric growth, it’s not surprising.

I also think that Arrington is getting a little nervous since he sees blogs with one or two writers gaining similar traction that his site has in a short amount of time. If he were to honor the age old maxim “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” it would be best for all to partner. If he laid out a plan for alliances I would imagine that a number of bloggers would be willing to jump at the bait. It’s always better to work with a team to accomplish lofty goals.

Then again, Arrington currently has the largest team and simply building the “Techcrunch” alliance would turn a lot of people off. Would smaller blogs be able to get along with an alliance made up of a few larger entities? Would you be willing to get rolled up into one large blog network?