The best article you'll ever read about web fame
NICK DOUGLAS — I always wanted newspapers to come with standardized "This is good" stamps on the right articles; it turns out they already do, but the stamp reads "by Clive Thompson." The writer interviewed top bloggers for a New York Magazine thought-piece on their success last year. (Unlike most shallow articles that quote C-list bloggers and draw USA-Today-level insights, Thompson went for the big guns and gave a realistic picture of the (scant) money and (scant) fame made by bloggers. Now he's done the same in-depth look in the New York Times at online musicians. He checks on OK Go, the Hold Steady, and nerdstar Jonathan Coulton, who sang the famous acoustic version of "Baby Got Back." Thompson has no agenda (no "Internet killed the video star!" or "The cult of the amateur is dead!") so he actually lets the subjects tell their stories. If only all journalism about the Internet were like Clive Thompson's.