I agree...the more we change the more we stay the same. I just think some bloggers are good at not having a political or money agenda which can taint the "realness" of the content. I like how Perez Hilton doesn't hold his tongue at all. - streetforce1

I would agree that some of the same problems exist in top blogs and top newspapers, there is a check and balance in blogging that works quicker than the newspaper system, but in general, you are spot on. - Andrew Hyde

Agree ... it takes a little more than a couple years to build the empires that have already been build ... probably isn't even possible - Nick O'Neill

Didn't it turn out to be Craigslist that has really hurt mainstream media? At least the newspapers. Also Google's growing dominance in advertising. It's not the journalism that's the issue, it's the revenue. - Todd McKinney

Jeremiah, you're ignoring the fact that many MSM outlets now embrace blogging as well. No one would argue that the two have merged at the top, but it wasn't all in one direction. - Duncan Riley

Thanks Jeremiah, I've been biting my tongue on this for a week or so now (i'm in the old trad media) now it seems like new media is the trad media which is being pushed aside by the new new media. - Jon Dillon

Agree. It seems even The Long Tail is losing some of its punch - http://valleywag.com/5020400... - Justin Gibbs

Agree. Just like TV killed cinema and radio, video/DVD killed TV, music downloads killed the music industry, and the internet changes everything. Each of these provides multiple different functions and experiences to different people in a variety of moods, roles and situations. The various markets will all settle to a new, if more transient, level. There will also be a home for pro versus amateur, more generalised versus niche versions. - Ronna Porter

Jeremiah, it's true that top blogs become media properties (albeit very niche ones), while (as Duncan said) MSM has been adopting blogs and other social media tools. So there's been movement both ways. I for one never brought into the 'blogs will kill MSM' hype, that's just nonsense. As everything, media has evolved very quickly with the Internet. So I disagree with you a bit there, because *a lot* has changed. - Richard

It's like how Dave Winer said there's no such thing as a pro-blogger. As far as I can tell the only difference between journalists and bloggers is that journalists are supposed to stick to a code of conduct. - Stuart Maxwell

They do resemble, but that does mean that are alike. For a start, "commenting" has transformed media into a two way conversation. Whereas "new media" vetures like businessspectator.com.au are like the mainstream media (a comment is treated like a letter to the editor, with my comments moderated because I disagreed with arguments) are a joke, other "new media" like Techcrunch and RWW are a whole new ball game with Seesmic and Friend Feed integration alltogether in addition to open commenting. I think blogs biggest impact is on the profession - the speed of blogs is killing the print news industry. If there is any confusion of being alike, it's only because blogs are changing he industry dynamics. - Elias Bizannes

I've said for the past year that it's becoming hard to differentiate "blogs" from other forms of online publishing. We're in big need of a vocabulary overhaul.FWIW, commenting in MSM is rarely two-way communication. It's a way for readers to vent and interact with each other, but MSM publishers and editors rarely get dirt under their fingernails. - Chris Baskind

Totally agree when you look at blogs like Mashable and TC - sometimes it is hard to sort the advertising from the posts. No offense guys - I know you have to make money - but there are more and more "sponsored posts" and "thanks to this weeks sponsors" etc.... - Dave Gray

a few things. first, sample error. mainstream media has maybe tens of thousands of writers creating columns for newspapers, magazines, journals, etc. the blogosphere has tens of millions. the degree of variation within the blogosphere is enormous. have you seen the recipe bloggers? mommy bloggers? and the children of the blog form, the facebooks and myspaces and tumblrs, are further diversifying the very nature of sharing, presented in reverse chronoligical order. now the blogs you may consider popular overall may have elements familiar from msm. but don't let that confuse you. it would be incorrect to consider the .0000001% of the "top blogs" as marking a trend in the blogosphere. you'd no more jump to that conclusion than saying that we can all run/swim/row at olympic speeds or move like jackie chan. - Phil Wolff from Alert Thingy

disagree, my buying practices have definitely changed, I was a two newspaper in the morning and one in the evening guy, I really can't remember the last time I purchased one, I think mainstream media is here to stay but newspapers are definitely on the way out - Patphelan

If what you're saying is true, then does that mean the Long Tail of blogging isn't very fat? That the Short Snout still reigns? You might be right, but I'd like to know how things look like all along the curve, not just a few crowding the small head. Any numbers? - phil baumann

next, blogging is a conversational medium. some journalists get that, some don't, and many msm organizations never will. Reading other blogs, linking to them, listening to comments, leaving comments elsewhere, responding to your commenters: these are signs of 'getting it'. to the extent that you see content that looks like a blog post but lacks any connection to the conversation is a sign of damage. - Phil Wolff from Alert Thingy

agree - sam sethi

Last, I'd like to challenge you to put something that you care about but that's off topic in your blog. a poem that touched you. your cat. an opinion about something outside your stated beat. blogging should be about the blogger, otherwise it is reporting in blogging clothes. blogging is a personal and interpersonal medium, so your blog should have a bit of you within it. it's not just writing in the first person, it's shortening the distance between your heart, your thoughts and the submit button. blog on, Jeremiah. - Phil Wolff from Alert Thingy

It is difficult to move to new modes of discourse. Making them technically feasible doesn't mean they will evolve. It's not just that blogs have replicated msm modes and mannerisms, but those that do not do so - the ones that offer some dislocation, some sense of estrangement, before yielding something special - get less visible as mirroring levels discursive difference. - tom matrullo

Blogs have given the sources a way to communicate directly without going through the media. There are far more sources of news now than there were ten years ago. "Killing" is almost always the wrong metaphor for competition, But our reliance on MSM today is much less than it was in the past. I don't see the "top blogs" as being blogs at all, they are MSM outlets that use the same CMS software as blogs do. That isn't saying much about them, imho.BTW Phil is right too. :-) - Dave Winer

media "killing" media rarely happens. We still have movies (some shot digitally), radio (sometimes streamed), television (sometimes on iPhone) , books (sometimes on Kindle). The universe gets more intricate with old and new media supporting, promoting, commenting, and competing. Movies became fodder for Lux Radio Theatre (which is currently still available by podcast). Ad budgets shift. Revenue streams divert. Physical formats become obsolete, but not the content, the audience or the conversation. - Michael Markman

I think the question misses the point. You're probably right that the "top blogs", whatever they are, resemble mainstream media, but _my_ top blogs give me much more what _I_ want to read than the mainstream media. - Michael C. Harris

They're not blogs anymore ... I counsel a lot of agencies and I'm telling many of them to view the big boys and girls as MS OnlineMedia: http://www.eyeballeconomy.com/2008... - David Weiner

Been some press lately about newspapers declining readership and predictions of the death of broadcast television. Let's look at some statistics, but IIRC the trend is DOWN. And where are people spending the time they save? blogs and youtube. You do the math. - Indio Apache from twhirl

Um. did the hubbub of blogs killing media end in 2006? As far as I can tell, blogs have never stopped proclaiming the death of traditional media by bloggers. They love to say that all the way up until some paper or magazine buys them. - felix

Is this not just mainstream media switching mediums. What is more interesting is the fringe stuff that would never have been published before. I think that a lot of people are now reading a bit wider range of content. Mainstream media always goes with the lowest common denominator to get maximum audience. - John Cooper

Mainstream media killed by blogs? No. Mainstream media fundamentally changed by blogs? Absolutely. *Every* major media outlet has a significant online presence featuring a large chunk of their content. Nearly all of them have integrated commenting/discussion, and many of them now have "Digg this"/"Share on Facebook"/etc. While it's not entirely a 2-way street w/outlets like CNN or the NYT, they are clearly being dragged toward interacting with their users, rather than simply broadcasting. - Pete Brown

Mainstream is intensifying -- cutting newsroom staff, consolidating newspaper chains, etc. -- in the scramble to keep profit margins up as mass media falls into a gazillion pieces. They are not making enough in the online world to keep the mainstream machinery running, and haven't really figured out the formula for online, social media yet. Blogs are one of the many economic challenges they face, as more and more people defect from mass media, and head for the edge, where we are doing it for ourselves. - Stowe Boyd

Thank you all, I have now collected my thoughts (much based on your comments here) and written this post and pointed back here http://www.web-strategist.com/blog... - Jeremiah Owyang

if you take the top bloggers/sites, and divide (actual) readership by staff count, it's pretty different from a newspaper... - Bill Seitz

Agree. - Robert Scoble

Agree - Francine Hardaway

Agreed and its entirely changing the business model for news outlets - Robert

Agree - Brian Sullivan

Don't underestimate the effects of regression. Over time, the MSM will exert their advantages and become more dominant in the new medium (e.g., 5 of the top 20 Techmeme Leaderboard places are held by MSM entities), and the few independent voices with broad authority will evolve to be more like the MSM (e.g., TechCrunch adapting to the Washington Post). - Sprague D

I'm not quite sure if I agree or not, but I know I wouldn't really care if mainstream media died out or not. Also, there will always be some type of media that has more viewers/listeners/etc than the others, and thats the one we'll call mainstream. - The Kid