Profy this morning was talking about how 52% of internet users do not read blogs, and Svetlana brings up an interesting point, they might not know they are reading a blog. She points out that the NY Times and others, for instance I’ll point out the Seattle PI that has reader blogs on the news paper site, and generally they do point themselves out to be a reader blog. But it is not always something that people will latch on to; they will go in, read the article and think it is the news paper.

That is part of the fun with a blog, when you start integrating it into other systems, people might not realize that they are reading a blog. I know that with Amazon, I created a special blog just for the book I wrote, and update it daily with news and tips on how to sell books on Amazon. While it is fairly easy to stay on message there, the blog shows up on the book page, and in my profile on Amazon. People might not realize that the base data comes from a blog out on Blue Host; they might be thinking that I am writing directly on Amazon, as that is also another option for people.

As we tie more and more of our social systems together, as writers, or just interested parties, the distinction between blog, paper, Amazon content page, clipping system, or otherwise tends to blur in people’s minds. They might not care about that either and this might be one of those things that isn’t all that bad either. The only problem is going to come in when someone hacks the system to inject their own material that can influence the market or opinion. Much like when the CNN site reported that Steve Jobs had a heart attack and was rushed to hospital that was someone seeing what they could get away with on the IReport part of CNN.

The blurring distinction between opinion, fact, and reality can show up and alter people’s perspectives on what is right, wrong, fact and fiction for them. Much like watching Fox News and their continual assertion that the democrats are all somehow implicated with every bad thing on the planet, the continual dripping of propaganda via integrated social systems has the ability to influence our society greatly. If people do not realize that they are reading a blog, where the reporting is somewhat dubious, facts are non-existent or spun, then that person’s perception of the issue is altered. Not that we are ever going to have a true bloggers bill of responsibility, when you are tied into many systems you will want to make sure that what you are saying is as close to the truth as possible. The truth being subjective for people as we tend to believe those things that we are more comfortable with.

The reality of the situation is that if people do not know they are reading a blog, and it is branded with a major corporations or news outlet branding, then that conveys the legitimacy of the bigger brand to the blog. For some cases this might be a good thing, in other cases it can give legitimacy to the written word that it might not deserve or warrant in its own context.

Not all blogs are equally worthy, not all blogs are trying to be a reporters viewpoint, and not all blogs should be tied into major backend systems that convey legitimacy for extreme viewpoints that might not reflect the middle of the bell curve viewpoint. In the rush to blog, and in the rush to have our opinions validated, we blur the lines between social, commercial, and personal viewpoints. If people cannot discriminate between the blogs on the NY Times or the Seattle PI, then we need to work out a way to identify and show that these are blogs.

We know when it is an OP ED, we see it in the OP ED section of the paper, maybe we need to ensure that the source of information is clearly presented on many of the commercial news sites as well.

Tags: Svetlana Gladkova, profy, blogs, users, readers, viewpoint, oped, interesting, social, behavior, dynamics