Yesterday, amongst all the bonanza at Wax Heaven, Mario has hit his 1,000,000th visitor making him the most visited card blog on the net. It wasnt anything surprising as Mario has worked his ass off for the last year and a half to get there, but what does that mean for the rest of the hobby media?
This blog has never hesitated to tout that because of the CBN, Beckett is no longer the hobby’s number one source on anything but Wrestling cards. Thanks to people like Mario, who have tirelessly promoted his brethren, there are more people coming to the blogs than Beckett’s monthly readership. Of course that really doesnt matter all that much these days, because more people use Beckett for checklisting than price and news anyways, something evidenced in their declining constituency, massive layoffs, and outsourcing of jobs.
Where do we go from here, now that Mario has hit platinum? Well, considering that all the bloggers do what they do for free, working outside of any responsibility to a manufacturer buying ads in their publications, and dont have to worry about pissing people off, Id say we are well on our way to bigger things. It used to be that people had very few places to go when they needed card news, and they were forced to use places that couldnt say anything real about the news they needed. This is no longer an issue, as more commentary is offered daily on the blogs than in all the major publications combined for the month.
On top of all of this, with growing dissension amongst the masses about conflicts of interest, I would say the hobby media has more X’s than blank days on their calendar to extinction. Hell, more people at the Beanie Wells event had seen my site than I ever expected.
Lets face it people, though things seem to be struggling in an industry with major ethical and financial problems, Bloggers are going stronger than ever. Congrats Mario, you deserve all the hoopla you get. Be sure to go check out all contests over there and get entered for boxes, cards and even a $50 gift certificate to DA Cardworld.