In the “It Seems Like They Don’t Like Each Other” department, there’s a blog battle brewing between Young H of Potholes In My Blog (“Why Popular Bloggers Are Bad For Hip-Hop”) and targeted members of the New Music Cartel, who I’m not even sure if they know they’re “involved” at this point. If you’re too lazy to read it all, Ivan summed it all up with “Blog Thugs-No-Harmony” and provided his .02 as well.

Honestly, I’ve never been much for speaking publicly about how I find another site’s content to be crap. Generally, I think Sandra Rose has to be one of the dumbest, most hateful broads I’ve seen in operation. I figured out her angle (I think she despises Black men), decided I didn’t like it and stopped the RSS feed. Didn’t have any use for her brand of blogging. Same sh#t for disgruntled, entitled types who used to write for print* (i.e. used to be popular) but couldn’t make the transition online, minus the few hundred readers who stroke their nuts egos for them daily. For most people, Bol is an easy target but I like the guy’s material most days. My rule of thumb is simple — don’t like it, don’t read it. By directing hits to the sites you dislike, you’re helping them in the long run.

Like most, I attempt to keep track of as many different outlets as I can, but rap sites generally fall last on my list (sneakers & sports first, stank you very much), as there’s a lot of regurgitation going on. In the big fish, little fish scheme, I can click on almost any site and know what’s going to be @ the very top before I enter, just by checking what eskay posted recently. No shots, but simple facts because eskay & co. will always be King Crab in this bucket. And that’s not to say we’re immune because we do our fair share of aggregating popular content as well.

At the same time, we’ve turned down countless offers to host projects where we didn’t know the artist or their material, had to tell start-up emcees “we’ll listen but we can’t guarantee a post. Keep sending though.” and things of that nature. And dear Lord, I don’t know why the hell Bad Boy still floods my inbox with PR and requests, knowing I can’t very much stand Puffy. Speaking for myself, I honestly won’t post it if I don’t actually like or find it interesting, unless it’s content that I feel like readers will find entertaining, that being the only sacrifice we’ve ever made.

What I can’t figure out is how bloggers keep up with each other? Barely finding enough time in the online day to keep a handle on my inbox is a tremendous task by itself. How these guys stockpile ammo on what they deem to be missteps is beyond me. Monitor them on Twitter & Facebook? Is there a filing system in place and then you pick a day to unleash? Is there an observed waiting period? How does it work?

Over a year ago, I stumbled across a quote by William Faulkner that said “Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” Once I read that, my whole approach to how we operate changed. There is no competition with other outlets, at least in my eyes. It’s all about how you choose to represent your brand and this culture. Entertaining and engaging the visitors. Finding what’s liked and dedicating words and energy to it. I don’t know how much success we’ve experienced as a result, but the approach has proven to be much more personally satisfying.

In the end, I treat the net like TV. I expect a certain news slant when I view Fox News. I get my funnies watching Nick @ Nite. I flip to A&E when I want to watch a Criminal Minds marathon. The point being, I know what to expect before I get to each station. The point? You don’t like it, change the channel or, in the online case, click the red X in the corner. There’s plenty of other content on this worldwide web.

Edit — Just spoke with Noz. No ill will moving forward because @ the end of the day, I think we ultimately all have the same goal(s), that being to better the culture. Earlier references removed out of respect and inaccuracy.