We all remember the line „No news is bad news." It means that it's always good for you to be in the spotlight, even when the news that is spread is not positive about you.
Well, this will be more true for some people (entertainment people for example) and less for others (politicians maybe, but I'm not sure about them ;-)), but you can be sure that nowadays all of us want crave for attention. Who has more of it is richer. There are more names to this attention that I can think of - you may call it popularity, fame (the 15 minutes on TV for everyone come to mind).
Translating being rich of attention into real money is part of the game. An actor for example is not only paid for his achievements in the art of acting. His salary is strictly related to his popularity and therefore the attention he drives to a movie or theater. How does this affect bloggers?
The longtail is losing
With the democratization of the publication process through the internet even the ones, who in past time couldn't get attention (to geeky, to ugly, to unsporty, unable to get published by a newspaper or in a book) now have platforms where they can try to get attention. They overcome the lack of abilities by inventing virtual avatars which are beautiful, sporty, and what else you can think or they just publish on a free blog platform - staring at the statistics every hour.
But I think the times where everybody gets a democratic share of attention in the internet are now even for the blogosphere gone. The longtail is losing against the big players and even the top-blogs (formerly known as A-Blogger) are organizing themselves into modern media companies. As in the real world markets there is only place for two (max three) competitors by niche. That means that the rest will not capitalize the currency "attention". The "change shop" for the currency "attention" is called advertising, and while more and more capital is going to online advertising, only the few on the top will get the most of it.
To be top you need a niche
So if you want to get attention these days on the internet you have to find you niche - you don't want it to be too broad and not to narrow. Don't do it like the New York Times Gadgetwise, because entering a market which is already occupied by two biggies is a battle lost in advance.
How to find the right niche depends on your intrests and will be covered in one of my lessons in near future. It is important, because finding the right niche applies not only to people who publishes important, but for everyone - at work and in personal life. Finding the niche where you can excel means you stand out, and you stands out drives attention towards him. And as we know, who has the attention can monetize it.
