PressEthic

In this BusinessWeek Online article about the Blogosphere, Technorati Inc. reveals its “searchable blog directory.”

Technorati's focus on making the blog world bite-sized for a more mainstream audience comes as it takes heat from bloggers complaining about spotty searches and sluggish technology. ("We made a mistake. We didn't anticipate the growth," says Sifry, who promises that infrastructure improvements are on the way.) The initiatives also help protect against the warp-speed of competition in cyberspace. Consider another early mover in a hotly competitive Web space that, after a strong debut, lost big to an upstart after failing to give its users more. Technorati, meet first mover Friendster, and newcomer MySpace.

This could force some bloggers to take the medium more seriously. In the interest of full disclosure, let me point out that I have a LiveJournal and it is certainly not meant for journalistic purposes. Knowing that it coud be going into a larger directory gives me pause, as some individual might see my “braindumping” as source material. Flattering and humbling at the same time.

Of course, the outcome of this depends on how the directory works. If a blog is automatically entered into the directory unless the blogger has it removed (as in the case of landline phone numbers in most telephone books), anyone could find or cite anyone else. This might raise standards in the writing, but it would also raise right-to-privacy outrage.

On the other hand, the directory might be for members only, as in the case of Blogwise, a blog directory run by fellow blogger Sven Latham. Blogwise is free to join, does not offer advertising, and runs on bandwith “generously supplied” by DuckDriver. This free service vets, sorts, and displays blogs, requiring blogs to meet certain standards before they will be displayed. However, a site like this one – or like Technorati’s – could easily turn into an advertiser’s dream: blogs could be sorted, ranked, and used to sell products to a larger extent than they are now, just as television shows are. And like television shows, blogs could be “cancelled” by their providers if they do not provide enough hits to their advertisers. LiveJournal could lose a lot of 12-year-old members.

Not all blogs count as journalism, nor should they. It’s not a bad thing to hold bloggers to some sort of standard. At the very least, maybe it would encourage better writing. Considering all the potential for blogs to be used as open-source wikis and networking tools, I think encouraging better writing and more dedication to accurate fact-reporting could serve the blogosphere well – even among budding poets seeking feedback and pet owners swapping pictures. However, one must be cautious. Blogospheric Darwinism would potentially limit the venues of free speech of those who just want to empty their minds onto their computer screens and then share their musings with their fifty closest friends.