Why do some blogs get famous and others don’t?

In other words, how come no one’s ever done an article about OTBKB?  Grumble. Grumble.

Here’s a piece about blogging in NYC from AM/NY.

Not one word about OTBKB. What am I, chopped liver? Come on now.

His name is Patrice Evans, but you can call him The Assimilated Negro.

For the past six months, Evans has been blogging under his wry nickname, posting stories, comics and even self-produced hip-hop tracks about other blogs (theassimilatednegro.blogspot.com). He is a foot soldier in the growing army of New Yorkers battling for recognition in the blogosphere.

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"At the core of the blogging appeal is an independent sense of empowerment," he explains. "Blogs are very much at home in the New York City spirit of doing things yourself, instead of depending on a big name to back you up."

According to local blog registry nycbloggers.com, there are more than 6,250 independent blogs like The Assimilated Negro scattered throughout the five boroughs. Many others, like the 14 published by Gawker Media, are owned by commercial enterprises based here in New York.

Both independents and professionals (those who make a living through blogging), say that New Yorkers have been uniquely successful in employing this technology as a business and as an art.

"There are so many New Yorkers out there who write really well and tell stories really well," says Chris Hampton, who blogs at uffish.com. "More and more they are realizing that blogging is a good way to communicate with their audience."

Hampton hosts the WYSIWYG Talent Show, an all-blogger monthly review of readings and skits. Past shows have explored topics like "The City That Never Shuts Up" and "Worst. Sex. Ever."

Listening to tales of drug and sex-fueled romps at a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) show quickly dispels the still-lingering stereotype of blogger as super-dork, someone who stays at home on the computer in order to avoid actual human contact.

Hampton says she started blogging in order to have a creative outlet while stuck at an administrative day job. Others blog to flex their journalistic muscles without the constraints imposed by mainstream media outlets.

Whatever their motivation, there are bloggers in this town catering to every interest, written by every conceivable kind of person, and collectively working to create a 21st-century New York that is the country’s foremost Blog City.

Cultural Happenings

Blogs like brooklyn-vegan.com traffic almost exclusively in listing and reviews of upcoming music and dance shows. A similar service, though not technically a blog, is available through Web sites like thrillist.com. After registering, users receive emails with recommendations about things to do or see or eat around the city.

"Reading a bad review of something doesn’t really give you a whole lot," said Ben Lerer, co-founder of Thrillist. "We want to give people stuff they can really move on."

In a nod to the dynamic allure of blogs, the popular e-mail newsletter flavorpill.net is launching a redesign next week that will include daily updates on its Web site. Co-founder Sascha Lewis says it’s a way to stay current in a city where culture evolves faster than you can click the "refresh" button.

News and Gossip

They range from earnest reporting to posts so snarky that the irony becomes more compelling than the story itself. At the earnest end are news blogs like gothamist.com, which offer straight-shooting reports of politics and local culture that are "just trying to give people a sense of what the city is like on this day," according to editor Jen Chung.

"I think we tend to be straightforward … because we genuinely love the city and just want to share our enthusiasm about it," she explains. On the opposite end of the spectrum are gossip blogs like gawker.com and jossip.com, whose postings tend to value the scathing over the flattering. Still, snark is sexy, and blogs like gawker get an enormous amount of attention from the very same media sources they routinely criticize.

Real Estate

Topics that resonate with all New Yorkers — housing prices, new construction projects and gentrification — are fertile ground for commentary and speculation, making real estate blogs like curbed.com and brownstoner.com some of the more popular in the city.

"Neighborhoods mean so much in New York, more than anyplace else," says curbed.com senior editor Joey Arak. "Something as trivial as a Starbucks opening explodes into something huge, because people care about everything coming into their little parcel of New York City acreage."

Arak speaks of "niche neighborhood blogs," that focus on esoteric subjects like where to find the best bagel or what B-List celebrity might be checked into a particular hotel.

Blogs Stay For a Spell

Microsoft Word loves to underline misspelled words with angry red squiggly marks. But as of the 2007 edition, currently in beta testing, words like "blog," "blogger," and "blogosphere," won’t be singled out for the spell check treatment. Apparently "blog," at least as far as the programmers at Microsoft are concerned, is now part of the English language.