Blogosphere

"Blogosphere" is a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It is the perception that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network.

History

The term was coined on September 10, 1999 by Brad L. Graham, as a joke. [ [http://www.bradlands.com/weblog/comments/september_10_1999/ The BradLands: Must See HTTP:// ] ] It was re-coined in 2002 by William Quick, [ [http://www.iw3p.com/DailyPundit/2001_12_30_dailypundit_archive.php#8315120 DailyPundit.com ] ] and was quickly adopted and propagated by the warblog community. The term resembles the older word "logosphere" (from Greek "logos" meaning "word", and "sphere", interpreted as "world"), the "the world of words", the universe of discourse.

Despite the term's humorous intent, CNN, the BBC, and National Public Radio's programs "Morning Edition", "Day To Day", and "All Things Considered" have used it several times to discuss public opinion. A number of media outlets in recent years have started treating the blogosphere as a gauge of public opinion, and it has been cited in both academic and non-academic work as evidence of rising or falling resistance to globalization, voter fatigue, and many other phenomena, [ [http://www.lexingtonbooks.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0739116711 Blogosphere: The new political arena] , Michael Keren, 2006.] and also in reference to identifying influential bloggers [Nitin Agarwal, Huan Liu, Lei Tang, and Philip Yu. "Identifying Influential Bloggers in a Community", First International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM08), February 11-12, Stanford, California.] and "familiar strangers" in the blogosphere. [Nitin Agarwal, Huan Liu, John Salerno, and Philip Yu. "Searching for 'Familiar Strangers' on Blogosphere: Problems and Challenges", NSF Symposium on Next-Generation Data Mining and Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation. October 10-12, Baltimore, MD.]

Tracking

Sites such as Technorati, BlogPulse, Tailrank, and BlogScope track the interconnections between bloggers. Taking advantage of hypertext links which act as markers for the subjects the bloggers are discussing, these sites can follow a piece of conversation as it moves from blog to blog. These also can help information researchers study how fast a meme spreads through the blogosphere, in order to determine which sites are the most important for gaining early recognition. [ [http://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/EXPORT/DL/38960.pdf Investigating the Impact of the Blogosphere: Using PageRank to Determine the Distribution of Attention] , Kirchhoff, Bruns & Nicolai, 2007.] Sites also exist to track specific blogospheres, such as those related by a certain genre, culture, subject matter or geopolitical location.

See also

*Afrosphere
*Canadian blogosphere
*Customer engagement
*Group Blogging
*Global Voices Online
*J-Blogosphere
*New Zealand blogosphere

References

7. [http://www.usapr.org/papers/6.aspx How People Labelled with Intellectual Disability Manage Identity as They Engage the Blogosphere- Alex McClimens]

External links

* [http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/traffic_patterns/article.php/3438891 Article on growth of the blogosphere] (Nov 22 2004)
* [http://wanabehuman.blogspot.com/2006/04/politicstechnology-chinese-blogosphere.html The Chinese blogosphere] and [http://wanabehuman.blogspot.com/2006/04/politicstechnology-persian-blogosphere.html the Persian blogosphere] at Wanabehuman
*State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 by Dave Sifry: [http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000432.html Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth] , [http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000433.html Part 2: On Language and Tagging]
*State of the Blogosphere, September 2008 [http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/ Day 1 of 5: Who Are the Bloggers?]