blog: new wave on media

The continuing development of the power blogger within different industry sectors, niches and micro niches is another demonstration of the Web’s power to continue to influence and change the “Information Age’s” landscape.

The bloggers new found ability to spread their content through social media in recent times with great effect and leverage is raising some interesting scenarios especially with Rupert Murdoch’s News about to start to charge people for news and content on his newspapers and magazines worldwide

Cnet News in a 2005 article had this to say “Will bloggers upend the mainstream media? What legal protections should bloggers have? Is there a blogger business model? While no definitive answers exist just yet, experts at Wharton advise questioners to be patient. Blogging, they note, will be around for a long time”.

A Wharton legal studies professor Dan Hunter puts blogging right up there with the printing press when it comes to sharing ideas and disseminating information.He said “This is not a fad, It’s the rise of amateur content, which is replacing the centralized, controlled content done by professionals.”

Another Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach also says “At its most basic level, it’s a technology that is lowering the cost of publishing” and turning out to be “the next extension of the Web,” says . “Blogging is still in its early days. It’s analogous to where the Web was in 1995 and 1996. It’s not clear how it will turn out.”

What is clear is that opportunities for blogging abound.

* Companies can use bloggers to put a more human face on interactions between employees and customers
* Marketers can create buzz through blogs
* Bloggers can act as fact checkers for the mainstream media.

There are dozens of applications for blogs, Werbach notes, and many that haven’t even been conceived yet. To be sure, the concepts behind blogging aren’t exactly new.
Some of the subscriber counts of these blogs is in the millions such as Huffington Post and TechCrunch.