Carnival of the Capitalists

About

About Bizosphere

The domain for Bizosphere was inspired by combining business and blogosphere, and was held as a possible business oriented blog or link promoting site. Bizosphere.com was put into service as the new home of CotC in early 2007, in concert with and to reinforce perception of moderate changes to the original carnival. Since then, it has served a primarily administrative role, hosting information and announcements.

In January 2008, Bizosphere becomes the fixed home of CotC, no longer a blog carnival under the prior definition, but still a known brand, with intent closer to the original goal for CotC than the way things evolved. It will also feature links and content, primarily on business and economic topics, fully a blog in its own right. At least, it will if I get around to posting such content, or engage assistance to that end.

About Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC)

Carnival of the Capitalists was born in September of 2003, when Rob May had a big idea. There was Carnival of the Vanities, for just any good post. Why not have something similar for business, where bloggers could enter their superior posts, get more readership, and perhaps even get the business blogosphere interacting with traditional business publications?

It’s hard to imagine in 2007 2008, but back then a blog carnival was a new concept, and we were the pioneers of the niche, or topical, carnival concept. We pondered how wide or narrow the niche needed to be. We pondered the name to use. Carnival of Business? Might be too limiting. Carnival in the name, or not? Might be stepping on the toes of Carnival of the Vanities. Might not sound serious. What about economics as well as business?

I came up with Carnival of the Capitalists, intentionally incorporating business as well as economics, theory and philosophy as well as news, practice, and analysis. We thought the name could be changed after a while if we thought of something better, but the brand took off.

As did the concept. We ended up pioneering the concept of a niche carnival, shaping the definition of “carnival” as a blogging term, and pioneering common practices like having a dedicated site for information, including lists of upcoming hosts and previous editions.

By 2007 it became clear we were at a turning point. Carnivals had proliferated, been frequently abandoned, been all too often used as little more than link building tools, and become old hat. It was time to set Carnival of the Capitalists apart again. We attempted to return to the spirit of quality, which had been lost in the crush of inclusiveness at all costs.

After almost a year of greater emphasis on remaining on-topic, with hosts having greater discretion to include quality over quantity, CotC was still struggling, and the problem seemed to be in the nature and perception of blog carnivals as we originally defined them, as put into actual practice.

It’s time to return to the root concept of showing off the best business and economics posts you might not otherwise see. CotC was first. There’s no reason for it not to be best as well. It just seems that means changing it to a carnival in name only, or changing the carnival definition.

Starting in January 2008, Carnival of the Capitalists moves to a model in which it always appears here at Bizosphere, giving it a predictable location. While we continue to accept submissions, editorial discretion as to what gets included will be tighter and potentially more arbitrary than ever, seeking the very best. The job of a host will include seeking out and including choice posts, handpicked rather than self-submitted by the authors, or even suggested by readers.

It will remain weekly, with a target publication day of Tuesday, rather than Monday. It will no longer travel from blog to blog, but each edition will serve to highlight the blog the host calls home, along with the entries. By building more traffic for each edition, through quality and predictability, it should benefit the host and those whose posts are included. Will it work? We’ll find out. Something had to be done, and it seemed wrong to abandon it entirely.