Will Richardson

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Dave Winer

January 8, 2003 By Will Richardson

“So far the focus has been on weblogs for journalists and would-be journalists, leading to the question about how we make money with weblogs. This is very important, and I don’t want to minimize it, but there are other important questions to ask.

If a weblog is used by a workgroup to keep the members informed, and to connect with other workgroups; and if their feeds are aggregated to inform shareholders, management, regulators, and other interested parties, you might measure the money-making in the form of money saved, or shortcuts found, or new ideas discovered, or blind alleys averted. Weblogs have a place in business that’s as strong as their place in decentralizing news gathering and reporting.

And there’s more. Imagine a weblog for each patient in the hospital. Each patient defines a community, the people who want to know what’s going on and how the guy is doing. I know my friends and family would have found that useful when I was hospitalized last summer. I certainly wouldn’t have minded them having the information (although I’d want to control who could access this particular weblog).

How about weblogs for political candidates, and weblogs for citizen activist groups to get corrupt or incompetent politicians out of the way. Weblogs for every cellphone user in the third world (and the first and second too).”

And…what about weblogs for…oh, I dunno…STUDENTS!? TEACHERS!? PARENTS!? Really starting to wonder why this focus isn’t more obvious to people. He could of picked any groups he wanted and went with hospital patients and politicians. I’m looking at my media kids site, looking at 260+ posts in amazement, looking at them start to collaborate on a piece of writing, and I’m wondering what’s it gonna take?!?
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Filed Under: General, Weblog Theory

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