Across the pond

According to Larry Elliott of The Guardian Gordon Brown is ready to embrace the bloggers of the world. He says Brown, who appeared on the panel with Rupert Murdock, says the days of decision making in smoke filled rooms are over. Politicians had to involve the public and recognise the importance of the internet.

“A few years ago the debate was about whether the media controlled politicians or whether politicians controlled the media.

“Now it is about how we are all responding to the explosive power of citizens, consumers and bloggers.”

I would like to think that the blogging community had ‘explosive power’. But I doubt. I think the big companies, who are well represented at the World Economic Forum, have quite a lot of power over the consumers. And I think the new internet millionaires, including companies like Technorati and Google have a big say in a big say in which blogs get read.

The big companies, including the old media companies, are in a much better position to learn the tricks of meeting the criteria established by the search engines. And they have the money and manpower to attract bigger audiences. The millions of individual bloggers cannot compete in terms of supplying information. They can express their views, opinions and feelings. But how they come to them is still largely dependent on the reports by the mainstream media.

The coolest party was given by Forbes Magazine, which represents old media money. And it is big money. Steve Forbes, the nephew of the man I used to work for, is and he can afford to give away $7 million to political parties.