The Top 10 interesting people in the Blogosphere in 2005
Before making our predictions for 2006, we revisit 2005 in a list of the Top 10 interesting people in the Blogosphere in 2005. — 1. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress — The rising star of the blogosphere took a few blows …
Context & Ripple Effects
Year-end ranking season has become part of how the blogosphere takes stock: The Blog Herald closes out December 2005 with a Top 10 people list ahead of its own predictions for 2006, sitting alongside other retrospective roundups such as Top 10 Tech Transformations of 2005.
The notable pick for platform watchers is Matt Mullenweg of WordPress, described as a rising star who took a few blows of criticism during 2005 — including over WordPress's RSS feeds, which began validating after that criticism, an early signal of how responsive the young project was to user feedback.
First-order effects
- Mullenweg enters 2006 with his personal profile raised by the listing at exactly the moment WordPress's responsiveness to criticism — the RSS feed validation fix — is on the record, strengthening his standing with both users and fellow bloggers.
- The Blog Herald positions itself as an agenda-setter for the coming year, using the list to frame who matters before publishing its 2006 forecasts.
Second-order effects
- WordPress's competitors face a founder whose visibility now extends beyond the developer community into general blogosphere commentary, raising the stakes on their own public responsiveness to user complaints.
- Other bloggers and small publishers gain an incentive to court similar year-end recognition, feeding the emerging economy of list-based attention that outlets like The Blog Herald arbitrate.
Third-order effects
- If platform founders rather than individual bloggers become the recurring subjects of year-end rankings, the blogosphere's celebrity structure tilts toward the companies supplying publishing tools — a shift that would make toolmaker credibility a competitive asset in its own right.
The trend: The blogosphere's year-end attention economy is shifting from recognizing individual bloggers toward canonizing the founders of publishing platforms like WordPress.