The Politics Of Mass Information

"in the [attention based economy] of blogs, credit for discovering and filtering information is potent currency.

Many blogs when posting links, will also include a link to the site that lead them to the link. This practice, bordering on a custom, creates a relatively smooth, fluid information space. While some sites may receive more attention then others, sites that continuously receive credit for finding new quality will slowly gain an audience and reputation.

...

Unfortunately there is flip side to this fluidity.

When the link credit is (not) upheld, a stratification occurs, where the most popular sites are able to dominate the flow of information, mining information off less known sites, and then hiding the existence of their source sites from the readership. This makes it harder for smaller sites to grow, and increases the value of the large sites that have knowledge of a broad array of sources.

As blogs begin to emerge as economic entities, both as revenue sources and as means for people to build personal reputations and brands, the danger of stratification increases.

When competition enters the picture, sources are no longer necessarily something to be shared, as they begin to take on real value. A medium size site represents a potential competitor to a larger site covering the same topic. A small site that provides quality focused information becomes a privileged source, a means for a site to gain information that distinguishes it from competitors.

These are the early days of the politics of mass information.

The behaviors and patterns of the blog as a media are still in formation and largely undocumented. History warns us that this new medium will likely stratify into its own system of power, but perhaps we can do a better job then history..."