Blogs, Blogs, Blogs!

To save you from another extended self indulgent post about how awesome SXSW Day 3 was I'll just say it was awesome and get on with it. So yesterday I had the fortune of being able to get into the Bloggers are Now In Control panel which featured the likes of Brooklyn Vegan, Aquarium Drunkard, and Done Waiting to name a few. Side note: yes, I am blogging about blogging. It was an interesting snapshot of the music "blogshere" and I really got a sense of how powerful the medium is. I never knew that one could fill or empty a venue with one blog post or that bloggers had enough sway to get artists signed. Blogs as a promotion tool are huge. Often It its like having a formal review of your music by someone who really likes you. Most bloggers blog only about things they like. This is due to time constraints or disinterest I'm not sure which one is more of a factor. And a note for all you artists out there: Want to get noticed in an email to a blogger? Make sure the subject line of your email says what you are all about and actually read the blog first will get you far.
One thing I did note is that these folks think very highly of themselves and even fancy themselves journalists. With several traditional journalists in the room there were some pointed questions about the legitimacy of blogs in the news media. What the journalists asserted was that blogs have no formal editing process, no oversight, and fact checking is often put on the shoulders of the reader. I think this is is a critical point of contention which the blogsphere never has adequately addressed and its dangerous if people run about calling music blogs news. Nonetheless, it seems as though there is a continued simultaneous specialization and expansion of blogs. There was a general agreement at the panel that gone are the days where people only blogged about "indie rock." They pointed out that there are even country music blogs now and one should expect to see the "Nickleback blogs" of the most mainstream music soon.