The Internet is huge, no doubt about it. With millions of people reading news, checking email, shopping and looking for the occasional odd hobby, it’s a wonderful tool for so many things. In recent years, one of the newest items is the web log, AKA the blog.
Right now though, the blogosphere is growing and expanding and seems set to continue this growth but it’s still in it’s very early stages. Right now, in many cases, the blogosphere is extremely isolated and very limited not in the potential scope but in the realistic scope.
One thing about microcosms, sometimes things get missed. Like so many Lilliputians, scales are misjudged and in many cases even unrealistic. Most blogs are very specialized in their nature. They could be political blogs (the most common) or blogs on comic books or blogs on hair care or even blogs on blogs. They all operate in their own microcosm.
For example, if you follow political blogs and you consider your political leanings liberal or to the left, you might follow DailyKos, Huffington Post, Eschaton and Crook And Liars. All of these are decent political blogs with high traffic into the millions a day. There are tons of others. Lots of people link to them, they have hundreds of comments (I wish I could get that for my blog) but many people get a lot of their information and news from these sources and just these sources. Then, when topics come up for discussion, then they are uninformed and illequipped to do with many things.
The problem with this is in many cases they skew your perception of so many things. You read these, you see all the comments and then you think there must be others who feel this way. But if you step out the door here in Kentucky, first they ask what a blog is and then they immediately question “liberal” anything.
In some ways, it’s kind of a family effect or any other tightly knit group. There are tons of references members of a family might get, like your grandfather having too many bloody marys or that time your aunt got the speeding ticket or even when you were 2 and everyone tells your girlfriend you liked to run around naked and she quips you still do.
The blogosphere is the same way. Anyone who follows blogs and news on ecommerce probably knows who John Battelle is and there’s a good shot they know who Danny Sullivan is. They and a few others get picked up by mainstream media like the New York Times or National Public Radio or the Wall Street Journal or CNN but most of the rest of us don’t get much play in the mainstream. This is the same for any type of blog or subject area of blogs. And I would even be willing to bet that those two guys get most of their traffic from inside the industry.
Many assumptions made in many blogs are made to the effect that much of the rest of the world knows about them and feels the same way. That’s rarely the case. Many people I know spend very little time on the internet or on the computer and could really care less. People work on farms and have jobs and work 8 or 10 hours a day or more and don’t have the time nor the care to dedicate a couple of hours contemplating the future of Dr. Lee. It’s not important to them.
The blogosphere is growing by leaps and bounds every day and there are millions already in existence. Blogs are becoming a good source of information for many things. Journalists for major news media admit they comb a few for ideas. That’s great. It means they are having an impact but at this stage in the game, most blogs, particularly blogs aimed a specific industry or topic are more like unedited trade journals. They’re sloppy, they’re unprofessional and they lack polish. Most bloggers have no notions of libel and slander laws, journalistic style rules for attribution and lots of other ethical considerations professional journalists practice daily. In the scheme of things many might want to learn and study up on it bit because the fact is, if you have a bad experience with some company and blog about it, you could leave yourself open to an ugly lawsuit and you will probably lose. With an audience of potentially millions, you better believe companies will protect their images tooth and nail.
In the end, blogs are another tool for communication. Much information can be gleaned but in most cases, much of the “information” comes almost exclusively from other members of one’s family whereas I always respected a family member’s opinion, I can point out more than few times where they were totally off the mark because they limit their own sources of information and by so doing limit their own perspective and their ability to make sound judgments.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
