The power of blogs - a personal tale

An interesting personal experience sheds light on the power of blogs, you know those geek-powered websites that no one reads. I've been looking to replace my age-old HP laptop and had been unable to decide on a particular brand. Browsing thru Instapundit this weekend, I noticed that Glenn had been searching for a new laptop himself. I took a look at the Amazon link and after going to laptopmag.com to see their review, I bought Glenn's suggestion.

What does that tell us ? That in this age of data overload, blogs are one of the tools enhancing the power of "mavens", those trusted souls Malcom Gladwell writes about.
The Amazon Associates referral system is probably one of the best tools out there to wax poetic about a product and earn money from it.

The digital economy is just starting to invent new business models for people out there to create content, offer their own perspectives and provide what people are so lacking nowadays: rooted points of view from which to start (or end) their own train of thought. Blogs at their core are one person or group's angle on current events and their picks on what to read.

The soon-to-come merger of wikis and blogs, outfitted with podcasting a la Winer-Curry, will allow a true democratization of news gathering. The 500-channel world will explode a hundredfold. Already, Koreans have shown us with Ohmynews that regular folk can become citizen-reporters, and that their fellow readers are willing to pay to access their writing.

More musings tomorrow....