I mention here that Robert Scoble is getting a bit overwhelmed with his role as blogger star.

One could argue that none love blogging more than Scoble. That’s why his admission might be a sign of a major pivot point in the evolution of blogging. I’m not talking about “the beginning of the end” of blogging (although I suppose that’s possible). I’m talking about a re-distribution of influence in blogging – a increase in the “depth of the field” so to speak.

Let me explain. As evidenced by Scoble’s comments and Dave Winer’s recent statement that he’ll give up his blog this year, it appears to me that the power players in blogging are getting overwhelmed by the blog monsters they’ve created. Marketers see the traffic these top bloggers are getting, and see the attention others garner when their firm is mentioned by a major blogger. A story builds in people’s minds: “If can only get Scoble to blog about my offering, I’ll get a ton of new traffic and my business will take off.” Everyone jumps on the proverbial bandwagon.

Obviously, the phenomenon of getting a famous person to use and/or talk about your product isn’t unusual. Big companies have done so using a celebrity as the voice and television as the medium for decades. The problem is that the celebrity endorsement is mostly a mass market broadcasting approach to marketing – an approach losing credibility among a growing number of marketers according to Verizon CMO John Stratton (thanks to Steve Yastrow for posting Stratton’s recent comments here).

I predict that more power bloggers will either drop off the face of the blog world, or will simply reduce their posting volume and get more selective about who & what they endorse. Smart marketers will spot this sea shift, and seek to attract other connectors.

And there should be more connectors for them to choose from. Like cable TV’s growth from a few channels to hundreds, I believe that more quality bloggers will surface, thus further dividing blog viewership among more “channels.” These new bloggers will probably not attain the superstar status of the blogging pioneers, not only because they weren’t a pioneer themselves, but also because they’ll tend to be more focused with their content. Focused content will draw a more focused niche audience – the kind of audience most marketers should crave today.

Another benefit from this apparent over-reliance on superstar endorsements could be the realization that getting the right people to shout about your product might be a waste of your time. If you focus on creating a truly remarkable product which your audience can’t help but share with others, you might end up with something that doesn’t need a superstar’s paid or non-paid endorsement.

Robert Scoble admitted here yesterday that he’s getting a bit overwhelmed with the volume of digital traffic – e-mails, comments on his blogs, etc. — hitting his in-box.

The following are select excerpts from Robert’s posting I found worth repeating here:

I’m staring at hundreds of emails and just don’t want to deal with my inbox right now.

The pressure is just incredible to do more, more, more [blogging]. Who made me a gatekeeper? I don’t want that job.
Don’t send me more email pitches please. Don’t beg for me to try out your software. Don’t wait for me to blog about your company or your team or your product or you. That’s what comments here are for. You have direct access to anyone who is reading this post. Pitch in the comments! If your stuff is good, someone will try it out and say so. Maybe even me.

Blogging is authentic, and has power because of that, but the marketers have definitely arrived and now my inbox is full of people saying “pick me, pick me.”

I can’t even answer all my email anymore. I’m a week behind. It’s time to rethink everything.

I’ve realized that what got me here was listening. Listening to my friends talk about their lives. Listening to software developers complaining how hard it is to deal with Microsoft (or how hard our software is to use). Listening to people living their lives and noticing THEM.

I’ve gotten away from that cause so many people think that the secret to their commercial success is to get me to link to them or talk about their products. No, the secret is to start a conversation.

Why do I read blogs? To learn about my friends so that I have something to talk with them about.

It’s the small things on blogs that matter to me. It’s the small things that make us human. Increasingly our blogs have lost their humaness. We’ve become marketing machines. Things to be objectified…