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Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times
In 2002, blogging evangelist Dave Winer made a long bet with New York Times executive Martin Nisenholtz: "In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site."
Today, Associated Press editors and news directors chose the top 10 news stories of the year, which makes it possible to determine who won the bet.
AP's No. 5: Chinese exports
The Times ranks 20th for the Nov. 30 article China Agrees to Remove Certain Export Subsidies. The weblog BloggingStocks ranks 19th for the Dec. 5 entry Chinese exports take off. Winner: Blogs.
AP's No. 4: oil prices
The Times ranks 15th for the Oct. 17 story Record Price of Oil Raises New Fears. The weblog BloggingStocks ranks 42nd for the Dec. 11 entry Is the Price of Oil 'Artificially' High? Winner: Times.
AP's No. 3: Iraq War
The Times ranks 20th for its special section on the war. The weblog Iraq War Today ranks 17th. Winner: Blogs.
AP's No. 2: mortgage crisis
The Times ranks first for the Sept. 2 story Can the Mortgage Crisis Swallow a Town? The user-generated weblog Digg ranks 19th for Monday's entry Top 5 Reasons Why the Mortgage Crisis = Global Warming, which links to a Dec. 17 blog entry on Solve Climate. Winner: Times.
AP's No. 1: Virginia Tech killings
The Times ranks 30th for an April 18 weblog entry, Updates on Virginia Tech, from The Lede: Notes on the News. The user-generated weblog Newsvine ranks ninth for today's weblog entry, Top News Story: Virginia Tech Killings, which is about AP's top 10 stories of 2007. Winner: Blogs.
So Winer wins the bet 3-2, but his premise of blog triumphalism is challenged by the fact that on all five stories, a major U.S. media outlet ranks above the leading weblog in Google search. Also, the results for the top story of the year reflect poorly on both sides.
In the five years since the bet was made, a clear winner did emerge, but it was neither blogs nor the Times.
Wikipedia, which was only one year old in 2002, ranks higher today on four of the five news stories: 12th for Chinese exports, fifth for oil prices, first for the Iraq war, fourth for the mortgage crisis and first for the Virginia Tech killings.
Winer predicted a news environment "changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want." Nisenholtz expected the professional media to remain the authoritative source for "unbiased, accurate, and coherent" information.
Instead, our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.
It's an interesting analysis. Kind of defines the information age as it currently exists. But, you know what, in five years, the configuration will be different still.
The wikipedia aspect interests me a lot because I use it constantly. I know you think that it's nameless/faceless/unreliable information, and, truly, on some of the more controversial subjects, I wouldn't trust the editorializing. But for everyday, run of the mill information, I love wiki. I really do.
Speaking of blogs though, I think you might like this one if you haven't discovered it already. It's a perfect blog for politics junkies and is hugely female driven.
http://wonkette.com/
because you don't know who is writing what. At the same time, it's the fastest way to find what you are looking for and building upon the info. For instance, Baron mention Rothbard, I went to Wikki, then .edu advanced on Google. I most certainly found information. That's what citations and reliability are about. Advanced searches are our friends. 
Who says one learns nothing in post-grad degrees?
The way I use Wiki is for easy access to facts. The sun is about 870,000 miles in diameter. Antarctica covers 5.4 million square miles. The 14th President of the US was Franklin Pierce. No one has a vested interest in the diameter of the sun. Even for such easy facts, Wiki needs to be checked. I do not rely on Wiki for anything that requires interpretation, or anything that must be comprehensive. For example, I would not rely on Wiki for a history of Kosovo, or the timeline of the 2000 US Presidential vote count in Florida. Too many people have vested and emotional connections to such topics. The only way to get even a partially objective view of such subjects is to use multiple sources.It's an interesting analysis. Kind of defines the information age as it currently exists. But, you know what, in five years, the configuration will be different still.
The wikipedia aspect interests me a lot because I use it constantly. I know you think that it's nameless/faceless/unreliable information, and, truly, on some of the more controversial subjects, I wouldn't trust the editorializing. But for everyday, run of the mill information, I love wiki. I really do.
Speaking of blogs though, I think you might like this one if you haven't discovered it already. It's a perfect blog for politics junkies and is hugely female driven.
http://wonkette.com/
The way I use Wiki is for easy access to facts. The sun is about 870,000 miles in diameter. Antarctica covers 5.4 million square miles. The 14th President of the US was Franklin Pierce. No one has a vested interest in the diameter of the sun. Even for such easy facts, Wiki needs to be checked. I do not rely on Wiki for anything that requires interpretation, or anything that must be comprehensive. For example, I would not rely on Wiki for a history of Kosovo, or the timeline of the 2000 US Presidential vote count in Florida. Too many people have vested and emotional connections to such topics. The only way to get even a partially objective view of such subjects is to use multiple sources.
