What a Blog, Strange Trippi Its Been
First, let me say that I am not a Dead Head. I have known Dead Heads. Dead Heads are friends of mine. But I am no Dead Head.
That said, I am a sucker for bad puns and with the onset of recent reports about Blogs and this lovely picture of Joe Trippi and Markos Moulitsas, I had no choice but to write this title. I swear, I had NO CHOICE!
Now on to the Blogosphere, or Blogospheres, I suppose. It seems that there are more than one. There is a progressive one and a conservative one. There are independent ones and apolitical ones. The point is the Blogosphere is not monolithic. It is a collection of communities of communities. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little town of Internatevka Bloggers have been known to spend entire nights sitting on the roof and typing out their little tunes… at least until the pogroms (killer apps of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries) drive all the Bloggers out of their FEC protected shells.
With the FEC looking into ways to regulate Bloggers who take payment from political candidates, these reports about the rising political influence of Blogs could not have come at a better time. Blogs are still rather mysterious to the masses, and certainly to federal regulators. Some of the key studies recently been released include:
Pew Internet & American Life Project. The State of Blogging.
Pew Internet & American Life Project. Buzz, Blogs And Beyond: The Internet And The National Discourse In The Fall Of 2004.
New Politics Institute (NPI). The Emergence Of The Progressive Blogosphere.
comScore. Behaviors of the Blogosphere.
In some ways, Blogs are nothing new. As I have often argued, Blogs are a natural extension of discussion forums (message boards to some) where the privilege of starting a new discussion topic (called a thread) is reserved to one or a few authors. Like discussion forums, though, once a topic is opened, anyone can comment (unless you were reading the Bush-Cheney Blog during the 2004 election… for that one you had to sign a pledge of support for the President in order to attend a townhall meeting where you could make your flattering comments and maybe it would be quoted on the campaign Blog). Note: The Bush campaign Blog has been replaced by the GOP Blog, which invites comments, after you register, but doesn’t display comments.
But back to the point…
The occasional ranking of the Drudge Report as a Blog, for example by comScore, fuels some of the mystery surrounding Blogs. I have been an off and on reader of the Drudge Report since it was first launched back in the 20th Century, and while it includes pieces written by Matt, himself, he provides no way to respond directly to articles in a public forum. This is essentially a one-way site. It is a political journal, true, but not one that invites comments.
I define Blogs as online journals that invite and display reader comments. The vast majority of websites calling themselves Blogs meet this definition. In this form, a Blog is a powerful tool for growing an online community; a community that has free-flowing conversations from Blogger to audience, from audience to Blogger, and audience to audience. This is how Blogs become credible and influential in the political process. Configured this way, Blogs are engaging and empowering to its readers.
The Pew studies kicked off a lot of this discussion when it found in January 2005 that as many as 32 million Ameicans read Blogs. By August 2005, comScore reported 50 million Internet users had visited Blogs. Also in August, Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller (Bloggers and authors of the NPI study) reported that readers of progressive Blogs had quickly overtaken readers of conservative Blogs as the majority of Blog readers. It is clear that Blogs are now a legitimate part of the political playing field.
So, how do Blogs fit into an Internet campaign strategy? I can think of three ways off the top. First, start your own Blog to engage your campaign’s community. You don’t have to have a top-rated Blog to influence your own community. You just have to make sure your own community reads you.
Second, advertise on top political Blogs that reach your targeted audiences. Blogs tend to attract readers that Roper and IPDI call online influentials. These are people who will turn around and take the information they learn online and advise their friends and family to take actions, support candidates, etc.
Third, engage the Blogs. Use a Blog search engine like Technorati to search out Blog postings on your issue(s) and get involved in those conversations by posting comments and engaging the other people making comments on those articles. While this can be labor intensive, it is a great way to become part of the Blog community.
I will return to the role of Blogs in politics in future postings. In the meantime, enjoy reading these reports.