Where weblogs are going

Edward Cone, a North Carolina-based journalist, has written an intelligent perspective on the power of weblogs.

I was most struck by two of his points. “The key is that there will bloggers in those cities [where major media may or may not have a bureau], too, who will report first-hand both fact and opinion. This is part of blogging’s true power, the democratization of the distribution of information… Bloggers will lead, drive, and shape the news coverage of the major media.” As someone exercised by the India-Pakistan dispute, for example, I’d love to have a directory of weblogs on both sides of the divide (but they’d need to be in English).

Cone also cites community. “Another important element is blogging’s network effect-the tendency of bloggers to link to each other, providing a running conversation between interested parties that is available for anyone to read.” It’s still true that most of the traffic in the weblog world concerns technology issues. But I’m confident that over time there will be a richer diet of conversation on other spheres of thought and activity.