Remember the article corporate blogger Paul Boutin was paid to write in October? In that article, Boutin not so much argued as asserted that all the bloggers not being paid by corporations had better just pack up shop, because nobody can compete with the corporate blogs anymore. Writing is super hard stuff anyway, Boutin wrote, so all you non-corporate bloggers should just go to Twitter and write 140-character messages that don’t strain your brain. Resistance is futile, so just leave it to the pros. Like Boutin.
In November, Boutin was let go from his corporate blogger job with the corporate Gawker blog Valleywag:
My dream job as Valleywag’s full-time senior writer lasted five months before publisher Nick Denton pulled the plug. Yeah, he’s a quitter.
Now, now, Paul. No sour grapes! After all, now you’re just an amateur like the rest of us, so what you think doesn’t matter. Writing is so hard anyway. Why don’t you just shut your mouth and head on over to Twitter? You know, leave it to the pros and stuff.
Kind of pathetic that he still calls it his “dream job”.