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.^[1] It was re-coined in 2002 by William Quick,^[2] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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,^[3] and also in reference to identifying influential bloggers^[4] and "familiar strangers" in the blogosphere.^[5][6]

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, to determine which sites are the most important for gaining early recognition.^[7] Sites also exist to track specific blogospheres, such as those related by a certain genre, culture, subject matter or geopolitical location.

See also

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

References

External links

Look up blogosphere in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Article on growth of the blogosphere (Nov 22 2004)
• The Chinese blogosphere and the Persian blogosphere at Wanabehuman
• State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 by Dave Sifry: Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth, Part 2: On Language and Tagging
• State of the Blogosphere, September 2008 Day 1 of 5: Who Are the Bloggers?