Monday, January 31, 2005

Blogs as an information source--Thanks for the question.

A real question from a real reader:
What do you feel will be the long term effect of spamming comment sections on blogs and bogus blogs as linkfarms on the credibility of the Blog as an information source?

From the Information Ethicist: I'm fairly new to blogging so I'm not very familiar with blogs and spamming and bogus blogs. Tell me more. I do think that blogs are a great means for communication certain kinds of information. To me it fits into what is usually talked about as "the social life of information." We're just in the beginning stages for understanding how to use blogs, email, listservs, web pages, etc. in building communities with common interests, for fun, for political activity, and, I'm sure, lots more. My own personal reasons for starting this blog are my interests (1.) in finding other people interested in ethics and information and (2.) in having a place to express my thoughts on information ethics and related subjects. I've been working in this research area for almost fifteen years. Thanks again for writing. Tell me more about your interests in blogging and blogs as information sources.

1 comment:

Martha M. Smith (Marti) said...

Thanks for the info. That's a good example of a serious social problem not easily addressed by a technology fix.