The Web Isn't a Newspaper, It's a City

摘要

The influence of business and political blogs has become too large to be dismissed by the econtent industry. Blogging provides experts and wannabes with an easy way to make their voices heard in the Web-based marketplace of ideas. Companies that ignore independent product reviews and discussions about service quality found on blogs are living dangerously; information aggregators and distributors need to do some soul searching to determine where blogs fit in to their offerings; and infopros should be prepared to advise their organizations on the impact of blogs on a day's work. Blogs like Dan Gillmore's technology-focused eJournal and Rafat Ali's PaidContent.org are now widely read, and in the 2004 U.S. presidential election cycle, Howard Dean's pioneering Blog for America forever changed the way political campaigns operate. But as these and millions of other independent voices shout and whisper all over the net, certain elements of mainstream media maintain rigid defensive postures, dismissive of the diverse opinions emerging from the Web's main streets and roads-less-traveled.