A March 17 post at Sifry’s Alerts

talks on the state of the Blogosphere, in particular how blogs fare

against the more traditiional media as “influential” sources of

information (though what is qualifed as “influential” may not necessarily

be considered reliable or reflective of true states of affairs).

The finding is that,

[T]he most influential media sites on the web are still well-funded mainstream media sites, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN. However, a lot of bloggers are achieving a significant amount of attention and influence. Blogs like bOingbOing and Instapundit are highly influential, especially among technology and political thought leaders, and sites like Gizmodo are seeing as much influence as mainstream media sites like MTV.com.

However, some readers wonder about how the study defined “blog,” inasmuch as /. (slashdot)

is now categorized under the mainstream media, whence it was

previouisly defined as a blog.  Some also question the use of

links, instead of page

views, to denote influence, inasmuch as blogs do tend to “point to

articles from the MSM for the purpose of disputing or supporting the

blogger’s opinion; a sort of ’see it for yourself’ effort.”

However, it is good to note that Google itself uses the volume and

quality of links as a criteria for ranking pages, as Google explains here:

PageRank Explained

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature

of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an

individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from

page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks

at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives;

it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages

that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make

other pages “important.”

Google’s analysis is more complex and sophisticated, though, since it

also considers the importance of the “voting” or “linking” page in

ranking a linked site.

For me, the fact that such studies are now being undertaken (never mind

disputes in methodology and definition, or possible biases) is

indicative that blogs have indeed grown to be a force MSM has to reckon

with.  Maybe one day, blogs will dominate how people exchange

news, ideas and information online.  But still the question to ask

would be what is real and what is not?  As always, I would advise

readers not to take things at face value.  Read with caution and

discretion; analyze, synthesize, and eventually form your own views.

Blog!

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