Category Archives: Weblog as Power Tool

If you have ever wondered what was actually going on in the State Department, you owe it to yourself to read and bookmark Diplomad. This is a blog by career US Foreign Service officers. They are Republican (most of the … Continue reading →

It is a sad thing to see someone with obvious talent demonstrate to all and sundry that he does not understand what is happening in the world around him.

Bob Bly, a direct marketing guru of considerable reputation, seems to have joined that distinguished roster of experts like Ken Olsen and Thomas Jefferson who could not grasp the fact that technology had moved beyond their ability to understand it.

His article, Can Blogging Help Market Your Product in Direct Marketing News displays an amazing ignorance of blogging. It would appear that he has relied upon hearsay rather than upon direct inspection.

He confidently states: 

There are two major problems with blogging as a business-building tool.

The first is that most blogs I encounter are rambling, streams-of-consciousness musings about a topic of interest to the author, largely bereft of the practical, pithy tips that e-zines, Web sites and white papers offer.

This shows clearly that he has not read Adrants, What is your Brand Mantra,  Tom Peters or any of a score of excellent business weblogs which dispense invaluable information..

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I adopted the name Ripples for this weblog because thoughts spread through the internet like…ripples, and I wanted to share my thoughts with as many people as would find them helpful.

Unlike email, which is often enforced communication, I had hoped this site would be a useful resource for those visitors who found their way here. That seems to be happening.

I am finding that my ideas are finding a wider audience than I ever anticipated, and it is a sobering experience. In my first year of blogging, I have had about 40,000 visitors, most of them via search engines.

Because of the way that Google works, I find that the most casual utterances by a blogger can be given equal weight against the carefully crafted efforts of vast commercial sites.

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How is it that complicated and reliable systems of cooperation come about without any centralized direction?

Two outstanding examples of this are economic markets and the operation of the blogosphere. Both of these areas exhibit a high degree of spontaneous, decentralized organization. My feeling is that their successes are due to the existence of open communication of verifiable data. When this is not present, abuses occur and this leads to pressure for centralized control.

I think that as long as there are bloggers who write rationally and document their sources, blogs will continue to exert more and more influence on everyday life. The amount of distributed knowledge that can be unleashed within hours is just beginning to be realized by bloggers themselves. Ra^thergate was merely another confirmation that there are lots of bloggers with specialized knowledge and it can be easily tapped in support of a worthy cause.

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