Mom-Blogging
No I don’t mean moblogging. More like “even my 79-year old Mom is into blogging.” Not about BPM (that would be scary), but the more invigorating throw-da-bums-out-in-Washington variety. So over the weekend we both went to the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas, where 1000 of the top political bloggers and their subscribers — along with a surprising number of big-name politicians trying to grab onto the “netroots” wave — got together face-to-face in a bunch of panels, workshops, and general socializing. It was a bit chaotic as you might expect, but overall an amazing thing that Kos and friends pulled off.
One thing that resonated for me re BPMS Watch came from a panel on how blogs are affecting the mainstream media. It was how a blogger can tap into the distributed intelligence of the readership to advance everyone’s understanding. I think it was said by Christy Smith of firedoglake — supposedly the nation’s top Plame-ologist — who after gathering and publishing public documents on the CIA leak investigation heard from dozens of readers who had scrutinized various parts of it to bring out things that no individual would ever figure out. MSM journalists no longer have a monopoly on “the facts”.
That’s something I’ve tried to tap into on my blog, with somewhat less success, but I’m still trying. The ESB-and-BPM question got a few responses that helped me take the next step (I’ll post more on that soon) and I still think BPMS Watch readers are going to let me win my bet with Ismael. Unlike Christy Smith, my blog doesn’t get 100,000 visits a day (more like 200-300)… so it just takes longer.
Add comment June 12th, 2006
