THE FINALE (part 1 of ???)

The blogging phenomena is still a young one; the blogosphere, as a recognized community, is still less than 10 years old. Many of the activities which could be argued as early blogging, went nameless before then, still too mixed up in early websites to be considered a separate entity. Yet the growth of the community has been staggering: as of December 2006, Technorati has been tracking some 60 million individual blogs.
The rules governing this rapidly expanding community are still being framed. At best, there is a recognized code of conduct and etiquette, but no enforcement other than social backlash. This rarely extends beyond the blogging community; there are occasional cases of a firing or bad press, but no blog-specific legal or financial penalties currently exist.
Now that bloggers have started to go commercial, the guidelines governing these will have to become stricter and better enforced. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), is a collection of companies who promote an ethical framework for commercial blogs. For the most part, however, the blogging community still relies on a kind of internet ‘neighborhood watch’ to identify and punish offending blogs.

The blogosphere can be described using a number of worthy metaphors, including that of ‘the wild west.’ I think that in evaluating corporate blogs, Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point players could also be valuable. He identifies the following 3 characters as setting off marketing epidemics:

Mavens – Individuals with a wealth of information in their chosen field.
Connectors – Those with unusually large social circles.
Salesmen – Highly influential people whose behaviors are more likely to be mimicked.

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  Bloggers generally fall mostly into the maven and connector categories, naturally inclined to find information and help it proliferate. As discussed in class, bloggers tend to be tech-savvy, information addicted, opinionated, vocal, and tribal, all qualities which equip them with forming and governing various social communities on the internet. Many also consider themselves proud members of a subculture that is skeptical of mass media, government, and big business machinations. These are not apathetic people. They are highly engaged with their community.
  
  They are also, young, affluent, high-tech, and increasingly popular. According to an August 2005 comScore survey of blogs and bloggers:
  
  50 million U.S. Internet users visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005. That is roughly 30% of all U.S. Internet users and 1 in 6 of the total U.S. population.
  Five hosting services for blogs each had more than 5 million unique visitors in that period, and four individual blogs had more than 1 million visitors each.
  Of 400 of the biggest blogs observed, segmented by seven (nonexclusive) categories, political blogs were the most popular, followed by "hipster" lifestyle blogs, tech blogs and blogs authored by women.
  Compared to the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and connect to the Web on high-speed connections.
  Blog readers also visit nearly twice as many web pages as the Internet average, and they are much more likely to shop online.

Now that Google, Yahoo, Technorati and others have made blog searches possible, it is easier than ever for marketers to assess general attitudes about their brands. For example, GoogleTrends is a new tool that tracks the number of searches over a span of timeline, represented by a graph with certain points corresponding with highly relevant (in Google assessment) website and article appearances.

The growing number of bloggers and blog visitors is starting to affect mass media outlets, too. “In fact, Blogspot.com now reaches more visitors than NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and WashingtonPost.com -- clear evidence that consumer-generated media can draw audience on par with traditional online publishers.” (comScore report ‘Behaviors of the Blogosphere,’ 8/2005) Instead of turning to mass media, the masses are creating new media.

Some companies have gone so far as to create projects in which crowdsourcing is implemented, inviting knowledgeable participants to contribute to research efforts or product construction. Proctor&Gamble rewards independent researchers and scientists for valuable contributions to ongoing challenges posted on Innocentive.com. While not technically of the blogging domain, the behavior falls into the category of consumer-generated material that also encompasses blogs and YouTube videos.