More on Gil and his big move

The following is an excerpt from an email exchange between me and a top blogger. Reprinted with permission.
---

First off, going into Reshimu brings certain benefits to Gil that he otherwise wouldn't have

1. He no longer has to blog every single day, as traffic is going to the main site, not to him.
So what? The very excellent OrthoMom no longer blogs every day, or anything close to it, and she kept her traffic.

2. He is looking for that more "professional" look. Not to be some "stam blogger. Of course that is very establishment and not Web 2.0 at all.
Bah.

3. (I think) he now writes his blog in large part not to promote his own ideas, but to promote himself, and his publishing house and books. I presume he sees this as a way of building a larger audience for that.
He's not right.

4. If it takes off and becomes a great big portal, then he was in on it at the beginning and will make money.
It might prove to be a successful blogging venture, but it won't explode because the audience simply isn't large enough. Blogs that make real money draw MILLIONS of hits per week. MILLIONS. The largest Jblogger gets about 20 thousand.

5. He no longer needs to censor and control the comments, as "they" will do it for him.
Yes, he's a big scardy-cat when it comes to that, and this helps.

Downsides:

1. He may no longer keep his readership as people may not be interested in the effort to move.
His own comments are running 99-1 against the move. Many of the protesters say they aren't going to follow him.

2. Reshimu (at the moment) looks and acts just like technorati and other blog aggregators.
Its also like half a dozen other Jewish sites that already exist.

Reshimu's advantage (for themselves) is that you have to close your blog to be included (and why is that a good thing?).
Its not a good thing for the blogger at all.

3. People may not be as interested in commenting if you have to sign up first and can't post anonymously. Where's the free flow of ideas?
Well, Gil's not really interested in the free flow of ideas. Not really. And again many of his own commenters have raised this objection. Registering sucks. Only a frightened, control freak would demand it.

4. Luke Ford!
You know, I don't have any problem with Luke. (click and scroll down)

5. People read group blogs because of the simple format, consistency, and that it is not a magazine. I can read the JP op-ed/blog sections if I want a bunch of different opinion pieces all on one page.
You can already use your mouse and click among different bloggers and writers if you want a variety of opinion, which is exactly what you'll do at Rishimu. What's the difference between clicking a mouse within a site and clicking a mouse between sites?

Now if they were doing head-to-heads that could be interesting. "Porn is Bad, but Luke is Great" by Gil vs. "Porn is Good, Gossip is Great" by Luke Ford. That would be Web 2.0.
See the DovBear Dialogues. Exactly what you describe is already happening on my non-cowardly, no registration required, old fashioned blog.