Fast Company on Blogging

Blogging is starting to tip. First MSNBC, now Fast Company gives us their take on blogging ...

Blog Journalism: "Say good-bye to the old-school pundits on the op-ed page of the New York Times. It's time to blog."

Peer groups organize themselves in hundreds of different ways. But what they all have in common is a shared sense of mission: what the military calls "unit cohesion." That cohesion -- a kind of network effect -- is what makes the peer group, or team, much stronger than the simple sum of its parts .....

They call themselves "Webloggers" -- or "bloggers," for short -- and they're providing the most energetic, lively, and passionate analysis, commentary, and opinion around....

When they're not focused on themselves, mainstream journalists spend most of their time sucking up to sources and writing with a keen eye toward source protection. Bloggers spend most of their time engaged in constant communication with their readers. In so doing, they create a network of sources who are always on the lookout for interesting articles, columns, stories, and items.

Blogs Demassifying: (although I think this author misses many beats, it translates well for those still living in a mass-broadcast world) " Weblogs aren't just glorified pages of links and rambling personal sites; they are an antidote to mass media."

"A Weblog is based entirely on trust," she says. "People come because they like to read what you write. If you suddenly began promoting Nokia cell phones on the side, news of it would come out quickly because this is a close-knit community. And that would be a tremendous breach of trust. It would be a scandal in the Weblog community because it goes against our entire ethic."

Fast Company contributor's blogs here. And their list of favorite blogs here.

This popularization of blogging is a little scary. I need to complete my ideas on using blogging for business before some dinosaur makes a mess of it all.