Friday, December 09, 2005

so are bloggers really influencers????

a lot of bloggers out there are pretty proud of them being influencers, gatekeepers, etc....but other than influencing other geeks do tech bloggers have any influence over the other 99.999999999% of the planet? Scoble likes to think so, but his examples tend to always be about geeky stuff, I mean, its seems pretty obvious to me that a person will get more downloads from a post in a famous geek blog than from an article in a "major midwest newspaper."
I think that finally we have a way to prove this theory right or wrong...with hard numbers...on something that affects geeks and non-geeks alike. Music purchasing.

After the Sony rootkit fiasco, I was left pretty convinced (based on the online rage which was "mildly" perceptible) that even though few bloggers mentioned the word boycott, that that was what was going to happen: an uncalled, non-organized boycott on sony products (at least their music division).

Bloggers got the news item to be reported in major "real" publications and tv stations. Yet every time I read or watched the mainstream press I was left with a feeling the reporters had no idea what they were reporting and that normal humans would not give a damn.

So now we will finally see if bloggers are really "influencers", "mavens", etc (as Seth Godin calls them)...we just have to wait and see how far Sony music sales dip in the next few months. I doubt the difference would be caused purely by bloggers, so if it really happens, it will be proof positive or negative that indeed....geek blogging stuff permeates to other levels of society.

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