"Attack of the Blogs!" Duck! Aaaah!

I was at Safeway last night with my husband, and as is my stupid tradition whenever I walk into a strange grocery store location, I headed right for the magazine rack, only to come across the worst bit of idiocy I've seen in at least several months... Wait, it doesn't quite measure up to the Hurricane Katrina FEMA debacle, but it shows about the same level of general stupidity. It's a Forbes piece on the evils of nothing other than blogs. I have to admit that the headline got me from the first glance: Attack of the Blogs! it proclaims in huge, capital, bold letters, and underneath some innocent business dude is dealt an uppercut to the jaw from a fist jutting from his computer monitor. Poor business dude! The blogs have destroy[ed his] brand[] and wreck[ed his life]. He must fight back! How? Teve Torbes will tell him! (I highly recommend BugMeNot if you're going to read that highly biased piece of dreck.)

Needless to say, I've never seen a serious piece in a business magazine show such a bias against anything. And I'm talking even the editorial pieces by such obviously biased folks as Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, etc. Hell, a FOX news story shows about half the bias of this "article." Check out some of these highlights:

• pg. 134, column 2, "And though they have First Amendment protection and posture as patriotic muckrakers in the solemn pursuit of the truth, the blog mob [my emphasis] isn't democratic at all."
• pg. 129, "A supposed crusading journalist launched an online campaign long on invective and wobbly on facts..."
• pg. 130, "No target is too mighty or too obscure for this new and virulent strain of oratory." and "Suddenly, they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns."
• pg. 134, column 2 again, "Jordan instantly and repeatedly denied the assertions but the blog hordes kept wailing away." Oddly enough, I think the word is supposed to be "waling," but this is just literature, right? ;-)
• pg. 138, in the sidebar, "December 2002: Political bloggers drive Trent Lott from Senate majority leader post over allegedly racist comments."
  

With all of these sensationalistic statements, you'd think that blogs are a thing to be feared, and that the little guy has the power to take the big man down. I mean, look at the ridiculous statement cited on page 138 of Forbes Magazine. Daniel Lyons, the FUD piece's author, asserts that bloggers and bloggers alone brought down Trent Lott, and had the direct power to kick him out of office after his "allegedly" racist comments (I'm not going to comment here about the biased use of the world "allegedly" just because I'm trying to keep politics out) just by writing about his comments and not letting go. If bloggers had such remarkable power, why isn't the President out of office right now, resigning in disgrace? I'm willing to bet the blogosphere is abuzz with every action that he takes.

But think about it. 20 million people have blogs. Most of them maybe have one or two readers. A few blogs are larger. But the most clout they really have is in influencing a few visitors. Even the largest of the blogs doesn't hold a candle in influence to CNN, CNBC, ABC, CBS or NBC, or, hell, even FOX for news coverage. Blogs might have a small influence over a small sector of the population (shoot, 20 million writing is about 6% or so of the US population alone, and an even more miniscule percentage of the global population), but they're no substitute in influence for the corporate-owned and corporate-controlled media.

This is why I personally can't help but be amused by the "fighting back" techniques espoused by Mr. Lyons. Mr. Lyons essentially suggests to large corporations that have come under attack by a few small-scale bloggers use strong-arm tactics to force them to shut up. If blogs are undemocratic, these techniques prove that large corporations are even less democratic in their aims to protect their "brand." <--- Of course, the whole concept of "brand" is fundamentally absurd-- without products, a company has no brand, but never mind that small bit of irrelevance for now. To fight back, a corporation needs to:

1. "Monitor the blogosphere" by hiring a company or hiring special employees to read blogs all day.
2. "Start [its] own blog" by hiring a blogging specialist to write company propaganda.
3. "Reach out to key bloggers" by bribing them with big cash awards, paying them to put forth positive propaganda about the corporation, etc.
   
4. "Bash back" by "dig[ging] up dirt" on any attackers and feed it behind the scenes to other bloggers.
5. "Attack the host" by scrounging some remote small quotation from the company's website on the blog, and sue the blogger under the DMCA. Dirty b@stards... (sorry)
6. "Sue the blogger" for "defamation" and keep suing until you drive him or her or his or her blog out of existence.

Strange how all of this reads like something out of McCarthy's media manipulation techniques or smacks of the Alien & Sedition Act signed into law by John Adams. Actually, it also reminds me of Steve Jobs' and Bill Gates' "defense" and promotion of their respective brands.

I find it strangely ironic that corporations are so paranoid about their "brands" that they're scared to death of little blogs out there kind of like this one. Most blogs have little to no readership, so it's especially ironic to read such anti-blog vitriol over what is essentially nothing. Still, I think Forbes has sunk to a new low. This has taught me never to check out Safeway's magazine rack again... The things we learn each day!

Some quick updates: Am 100+ words up on my goal for NaNoWriMo. Yay! I didn't finish all of the C# lessons in time to take the final, so I winged it, and had to look up a couple of answers that I ended up scoring wrong on anyway ;-) I "passed" with an 81%, so woo hoo! I'll be picking up C# in a couple more weeks when NaNo's over. I'm planning on playing with ReactOS pretty soon. Am dying of curiosity-- it's supposed to be nearly completely XP compatible, so I'm looking forward to it... I've DL'd the Live CD and the install CD, but both are suspiciously small (the Live CD is 15MB and the install is 12MB, so WTF?).