It's a bloggity blog world out there

This is my 55th day on the East side.

I attended a health conference at the Kaiser Foundation, today. It was all about the increasing popularity of the "blogosphere" that surrounds us. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt was there along with a panel of experts in the health policy blogging field.

You can't stop it. Those of us with the access to internet have the key to an abundance of information. Tom Resenstiel says that with more information comes more arguments and more debate this does not necessarily mean a better debate. We are all one google search away from the answer to anything we would want to know about. Blogs allow for an extended conversation on any point of interest there is to talk about. Unlike a newspaper, a blog provides a limitless space for a writer to express themselves freely without a filter.

There was no definite answer at the conference about how blogging will affect the Health Reform debate in 2009 or if newspapers will become extinct in 25 years. But with an increased numbers of readers going to the internet for their news and milleniels like myself wanting information at the point of impact. More and more media is becoming digital in order to satisfy its consumer. Bloggers find they are breaking stories faster than other journalists. Not being a finalized, printed article, blogs, also, have a longer life span. They can be referred to and added on to. The topic or issue in the blog can continue to be up for discussion the next day if there are enough comments about it.

Comments supply positive and negative feedback to writers and writers do listen. Comments allow a writer to re-evaluate what they wrote and what they meant. This gives us an outlet to change people's opinions faster than we have in the past. Rather than a "preaching to the choir" method where a journalist has the final word a blog creates more of a conversation.

The majority of blogs are personal. Like mine they cover people's daily life activities and their viewpoints of the world. Next, comes political blogs. Right now in the minority entertainment and news blogs are the least popular. However, with more and more people entering the digital community everyday those numbers will change.

There are so many outlets to communicate these days from Myspace, Dacebook , Blogger.com and twitter to name a FEW people are keeping in touch literally with the press of a button.

It was a delight to attend this conference with one of my all-star blogging co-workers, Mark Senak. You can read his blog, "Eye of FDA" at www.eyeonfda.com.