Blogs, everybody has a view

According to an online journal, 57per cent of all referrals on Internet were from personal blogs, writes Puneet Mehrotra.

An opinion. You mean 'an opinion?' That's perhaps the last thing my school headmaster, a 150-year-old school with a Colonial legacy, would have liked to hear from me.  Much time and information has dissemination down the imperial glaciers since. I rebel. Today, I have an opinion. I have a blog. Love it or hate it, I have a say.

Everyone has a say

Blogs, they seem to be in the air. Chat room conversations don't happen without their mention anymore. According to an online journal, 57 per cent of all referrals on Internet were from personal blogs. From cabbages to kings, their topics are diverse. It's supposed to be the new weapon in the individual's hand.

And if you thought blogs were limited to humble individuals like family and friends, you obviously need to read this from the Washington Post.

'Jeff Jarvis, a former critic for People and TV Guide and a founding editor of Entertainment Weekly, has moved from writing for millions to blogging for thousands, slinging opinions on subjects ranging from the War on Terror to car stereos. 'God knows how many bits and bytes I've wasted on my blathering,' he says. Jarvis, 50, churns out all manner of commentary on his Web site BuzzMachine.com, operated with help from his 13-year-old son Jake, who has his own blog. MSNBC executives like his punditry so much that they periodically use shaky Webcam video of him from the den of his New Jersey home. 'I'm broadcasting to the world with a $99 camera,' he says.

For those who don't know, Jeff Jarvis is an online czar. Everybody who is anybody on the new media has an opinion about him. You either love him or you hate him. He talks, the press listens. (Google gets 1,210,000  results for him). He says 'Journalism is impersonal, blogs are personal, journalism is dispassionate, blogs are passionate.' And when he says blogging is the 'citizens' media' and Washington Post carries the report, it does mean Blogs have arrived and are here to stay.

The Blogging Scene

'Most seem tongue-in-cheek. Some are campy. The bulk don't make any money. Blogging is popping up everywhere, from cocktail parties to online and offline pubs. What's all the hoopla? Perhaps it's the opportunity for commentary, free speech, opinion, analysis, satire, cynicism, and humor.'   Seana Mulcahy

There is an interesting site called Blogdex, a research project of the MIT Media Laboratory tracking the diffusion of information through the weblog community. According to them 'Ideas can have very similar properties to a disease, spreading through the population like wildfire. The goal of Blogdex is to explore what it is about information, people, and their relationships that allows for this contagious media.'

Check out www.blogdex.net for 'the most contagious information currently spreading in the weblog community' as claimed.

Blogs and the art of business

If like many others you thought blogging is like maintaining your personal diary in the web age, you are just half right. You missed a Kotler P, promotion. Yes there are now blog promotion companies which promote your blog to disseminate your opinion.

Call it sheer laziness or a slow reaction from the old economy, but the eMarketer report says that only 4 per cent of leading US corporations had 'public' blogs so far for corporate marketing, communications or advertising. But that doesn't deter the other 10 million bloggers venting their opinion and getting it heard too.

An opinion, it counts

View the blog of a book slut on www.bookslut.com or maybe have a collaboration over too much coffee www.caferati.com.

If baseball is the name of your game, www.baseballmusings.com should be the name of your blog.

Political views, try this http://www.blogsearchengine.com/political_blogs_4.html
I just read Journalese Whispers (from Chinese Whispers) on evil pundits on doom.  www.evilpundit.com  and you will wonder how information especially when it's political in nature travels in times in these.

Salon.com Web Logs -- Blogs on art, community life and dozens of other topics.

Puneet Mehrotra is a web strategist at www.websitepromotion.in and edits www.MidnightEdition.com you can email him on ebiz333@yahoo.com