When I wanted to know what was going on during the last presidential inauguration ceremonies, I started Googling. Finding little, I began rifling through the few political blogs I knew of to find posts from authors residing in the capitol city. Soon, I was up-to-date on details of the parade route, had read first-hand accounts from arrested protesters, and I even watched uploaded videos shot minutes before they were posted to the Internet at a DC coffeeshop just off the parade route.

With another inauguration almost here, I know where I’ll be looking for breaking news.

Information is transmitted so rapidly in this technological world; opinions, polls, accidents, gossip, allegations, fashion trends and celebrity sightings are easily shuffled from a cell phone to email to chat to an RSS feed to a podcast.

Mobile-based applications for the Blackberry and the iPhone, such as Word Press, now allow users to post content, photos and videos directly from a cell phone to the web and to blogs. Instead of a one-to-many broadcast model of television, blogging, and other Web 2.0 tools, now offer the community commons a many-to-many model of communicating information instantaneously and with a personal lilt.

Blogging (Web logging) and vlogging (video Web logging), also called vodcasting, has changed how many Americans find and read news, opinion commentary, entertainment, politics, sports and create social networks online. Tools like Twitter.com allow individuals publishing space that involves up-to-date “tweets,” that transmit everything from the mundane details of one human’s daily routine to the worldwide experiences and activities of news reporters, citizen journalists, people on the street or celebrities. Everyone is a social documentarian, reporter and famous in their own right using the new tools of Web 2.0.

Sites like myspace.com, tribe.net, facebook.com and friendster.com create small to broad social circles that connect readers and their posts to others with similar interests. Topics include anything from sports, hobbies, photographs, politics and online journals to party pictures or recipes to make vegan brownies. Word travels fast, and the recent election strategy of U.S. President-Elect, Barack Obama, was won in part due to the activity and campaign online, in blogs and in social networks. According to Pew Internet:

• 54% of bloggers say they’ve never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they’ve published elsewhere.
• 54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.
• Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.
• 76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.
• 64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.
• When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say the primary topic of their blog is “my life and experiences.”
• Other topics ran distantly behind: 11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness.

The reason for all this blogging? Blogs have given the average person an opportunity to be a publisher, to express themselves creatively and to be a reader of new and original content easily accessible through a Web browser. Good writers no longer need an editor and a publisher. Blogs give way for more diverse content and a public place for the personal, professional or the anonymous writer to share their expertise, musings, products, passions, friendships, creations and whatever else they are inspired to post.

I’m pretty certain, if a revolution of any kind occurs, it will first be posted online in a blog. Perhaps it is blogging itself that is the revolution.

Kathy Bisbee is executive director of Community Media Access Partnership. Currently She’s working on a film project about youth, music and social change in Nicaragua, Cuba and Guatemala. Contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .