Blogger's role during the US election

Weblogs or blogs started to emerge significantly during the pre-election phases of the US and when the democrats had to select their respective candidates. Vermont Governor John Howard was the one who capitalised most, at least in the beginning. He only lost out when other candidates started to understand the importance of blogs.

Blogs became important tools to distribute messages during the election night. The networks were extremely cautious in disseminating news about the status of the poll, basically, they didn't want to repeat their mistake of 2000, when Al Gore was declared winner a little bit too often before Bush finally won.

So this time around, they kept quiet and those curious about the development of the election flogged to blogs. The messages reader received were not always accurate but they were timely and those that were wrong were quickly superceded by more updated and more accurate news anyway.

Blogs in America are different - and probably way more acknowledged in their significance as they are in other parts of the world. This came about in tandem with the decline of the reputation of the traditional media and the "thirst of Americans" for a different channel of communication. This is promising, for sure - and makes me wonder why all the sources mentioned in the above Yahoo article still require registration - but this is a different topic altogether!

(By Asia Business Consulting)