Technorati: A Pretty Mind-Blogging Experience

I'm still trying to understand how so much 'information' from 50 million blogs can be organised. It's overwhelming.

I decided to look up information on the recent war between Russia and Georgia. I expected the blogs on this issue with the biggest hits would be from political journalists and correspondents, or representatives from international humanitarian organisations. Whilst some of the top blogs fell into this category, some of the more popular blogs were quite interestingly somewhat off topic. These included articles on why Georgia is the name of both a country and a US state, Ukraine's involvement in the war, and apocalyptic visions of the near future for the world.
They were good for a read, but in the whole, I was not able to glean more information on the topic than I would from your regular newspapers or RSS feeds.

Technorati, I think, is an attempt to live the long-sought-after dream of having a totally open and free media which every member of the public can scrutinise and contribute towards. This, theoretically, will allow information to flow freely into every crook and crevice of the global society. Such a process has been deemed by many in the past to be a necessary good. Technorati, however, highlights the downside of such a media service: the overwhelming majority of 'information' provided by the public is uniformed. Many blogs on important issues are based on no more than hearsay, whim and feeling. Whilst the contribution of millions of opinions on a topic will ensure overall objectivity, most of these opinions can only be deemed 'quasi-information.'

This, of course, depends on what topic you're discussing. I'm talking about the war in Georgia. A 'conscience issue', where no research is required, is a different matter altogether.