Andrew Orlowski has a prickly but trenchant analysis in The Register on the online meme economy and the dangers of information bottlenecks. At issue is the meaning of the phrase "the second superpower."
The phrase was originally coined by a New York Times reporter to describe the world-wide anti-war movement. It's a catchy phrase and it responds to a global movement linking tens and hundreds of millions of people. But then the bloggers got hold of it, and it came to mean, not global public opinion, but global online opinion, a concept with great intuitive appeal to the narcissistic blogosphere. And what had started out as a phrase with very strong political overtones has been subtly drained of much of its ideological impact.
Why does this matter? Because the new meaning has almost completely supplanted the old one, at least according to Google. Never mind the millions of people in the streets -- the online zeitgeist is in the hands of the few, the proud, the A-list. And while the blog world may be internally "democratic," it's not always representative of the world beyond. Especially on issues that directly concern blogs and their importance, it has some strong collective biases.
Agree with Orlowski or disagree with him, but don't miss this piece.