Dave’s Take

As someone who truly enjoys blogging, I was a bit surprised by the latest report issued by Mediamark Research in regards to blogging and its influence within the online community. According to MRI, only 4% of adults share their views via a blog on a regular basis. This number seems a bit more insignificant than one would expect, especially if one visits websites like blogspot, wordpress, technorati or blogarama. By sheer volume alone, it seems that half of the entire adult free world blogs to some degree, but statistics prove otherwise. While their recently released study, Spring 2009 Survey of the American Consumer shows a minority of participation by adult bloggers, it does quantify the influence of those blogs, with a full 10% of online adults reading a blog on a regular basis.

The MRI report goes on to explain the significance of  bloggers and their influence (perceived or not) on a variety of things, including the recent decision by the FTC to regulate how bloggers review products and services. Beginning in December of 2009, bloggers who write product or service reviews will be required to divulge what, if any, compensation they were given for their work. This compensation can range from actual pay per word to simply being furnished the product for free or at a reduced price. Obviously, this blanket disclosure policy leaves a lot of gray area. As someone who has blogged about the inability of the FTC and FCC to do their job, I support the stronger regulations. We need regulatory agencies who can use their congressionally mandated powers to stop predators from stealing us all blind with bogus infomericals and sketchy online banner ads. But I question how mandating blogger disclosures will help in that effort. As usual, the government has opted to use a hammer when the job called for tweezers.

Regardless of how many people write or read blogs, I fail to believe that online commentaries persuade many people to do or buy things they shouldn’t. Compared to broadcast TV, repetitive pop-ups or targeted direct mailers, bloggers are way down the food chain of scamsters. Bloggers are great at creating word of mouth recommendations. They are far removed from the deserving targets of the FTC and the government should keep that in mind when writing new laws.