The Power of Blogging

I found an interesting article today on how bloggers are influencing customer service in a variety of industries. You can read the full article here.  I mention the article because it got me thinking about the power of blogs. I think that the power is being shifted more and more to blogs and away from mainstream media outlets. Will these mainstream media outlets ever go away? No. However, many people like myself are much more interested in getting news and learning from blogs than we are from reading CNN or MSN or a major newspaper. While the majority of print media outlets are complaining about having more overhead and the shift away from print, they are not asking why. I think that there are a lot of people who trust an up front biased blogger more so than a biased media outlet claiming to be neutral. Blogs covers things that those in the blogosphere deem worthy, and those bloggers are rewarded if what they cover is what people want to read. Major media outlets tend to be large, bureaucratic entities that cover what the other guy is covering. Content seems to be an afterthought for some of these outlets. People identify with blogs because they are like word of mouth from a friend. But this word of mouth has the potential to reach thousands of people in the time it takes spoken word of mouth to reach ten. That is the power of the blogosphere. The ability to remain personal while still reaching out to the masses. It's a very interesting concept and one of the reasons that I, like many others, am shifting my attention to the curiously glorious blog.