All this fuss about the role of blogs in the Dan Rather Forgery Scandal reminded me of an article about blogs from couple of years ago, which discussed the significance of the Blogosphere:
"It was rewarding to google 'bloggers accounts of The Idler's June 28th panel at the National Press Club: 'Inside the Blogosphere: The Weblog Phenomenon.' While it was naturally disappointing that Glenn Reynolds and James Lileks cancelled due to thunderstorms, airlines, and scratched flights, it was gratifying that they wrote about their experience in their blogs, because that is the Blogosphere in action -- self-referential, self-reflexive, self-analytical, self-correcting, universal, instaneous, decentralized, emotional, rational, and available for continuous updating, response, and review. It shows the strength of the Blogosphere as a network of responses.
In the words of William Quick's January, 2002 posting on DailyPundit:
'I PROPOSE A NAME for the intellectual cyberspace we bloggers occupy: the Blogosphere. Simple enough; the root word is logos, from the Greek meaning, variously: In pre-Socratic philosophy, the principle governing the cosmos, the source of this principle, or human reasoning about the cosmos; Among the Sophists, the topics of rational argument or the arguments themselves. ..' "