A reasonable question concerning the social media is: Are blogs predictive? I will answer that question over the next four posts: first I shall answer the question from the perspective of the consumer-world, and then address it with respect to the political blogosphere, and then talk about some particular examples.

What do we really mean by “predictive”? I think de facto this question is comparative; what we really mean to ask is

1. Do blogs process and spread information more rapidly than other mainsteam media (MSM)? In other words, are they a “first mover” or “early adopter”?

2. Do blogs create buzz around something that would otherwise go unreported by MSM? In other words, are they a “buzz creator”?

In the first case, it’s the speed of the medium that comes into play. In the second case, it’s the diversity of the medium that comes into play. One cannot perfectly seperate the two, but I think it’s worth distinguising them.

First let me answer these questions from the perspective of the consumer-world. We have plenty of examples where the blogosphere, or the internet in general, kept a story alive until MSM could get around to it. Perhaps the most famous is the Intel Pentium chip flaw. For about a month it was relegated to a discussion board topic, and Intel ignored it. Because of the compounding interest in the story (who doesn’t like to take down a giant?), it stayed alive while being ignored by MSM. It is interesting to note that many execs at Intel, including supposedly Andy Grove himself, were not aware of the issue until it hit MSM.

In these cases, blogs have the potential to give a worthy story legs and sustenance until it “matures”, ready for diffusion in MSM.

The second situation is one where bloggers take a more active role in actually uncovering news and making it public. The Dan Rather-Bush draft story is an example, where bloggers quickly vetted and rejected Rather’s story as bogus, which eventually led to the “death” of the Dan Rather brand.

Another example I like to cite involves the Aug 2006 banning of Coca-Cola (and Pepsi) by two Indian states, for having tainted water samples. Most people in the US heard about it on Aug 10, from their local newspaper. It hit large US MSM (e.g. USA Today, BBC, ABC) two days earlier, and NYT led the second-wave of MSM with an Aug 07 report. There was a first wave of MSM coverage that went ignored around Aug 3, with reports from BBC, Reuters, and Toronto Sun. BUT–the Indian blogosphere had been discussing this as early as mid-June (e.g. World Prout Assembly, Mission and Justice), a month BEFORE the court ruled against Coke and Pepsi. Finally, if you were tracking Indian blogs all year long, you would have known that Indian citizens in certain towns were furious with Coke for “stealing” the water from their aquafers, and that trouble was a brewin’ as early as March 06.

So in the consumer world at least, companies know that any single blogger can create a PR catastrophe that has to be attended to; and likewise, positive bloggers can enhance the value of the brand enormously, especially in terms of attracting new customers.

Tomorrow, I’ll address these questions from the perspective of the political Wonkosphere….