The True Power of the Blog

If you’ve been reading Copyblogger for awhile, you know that I’m truly amazed at the power of blogs to gain exposure for a small business. While I’ve been producing this type of content online for over 8 years, the ability of something cool or important to spread via the interlinked conversation that social media allows for is quite a remarkable twist on Internet publishing and marketing.

But sometimes, something comes along that makes you realize that what we’re dealing with here has implications well beyond business, marketing, and money. We now have the tools to make a difference in all sorts of ways that used to be impossible for “regular” folks.

Prince Campbell, a guy who mostly talks about the business of new media at his blog Chartreuse (BETA), is doing just that. Last week, Campbell (who is a former resident of New Orleans), received a disturbing email from a contact still in the city. He published a redacted version of that email as a post entitled People have no idea how out of control things are down here.., and it caused quite a stir.

I know the content of that email gnawed at Prince all weekend, so yesterday he decided to put up $1,000 of his own money to send a couple of volunteers to New Orleans with a video camera to see if they could document some of the things alleged by that disturbing email. In short order, several volunteers stepped up, and The Blog Herald, The Blogging Times, Know More Media, and Andy Hagans have offered additional cash. New Orleans local Candice Quates will be making the proper introductions on the ground.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me believe that something is really changing this time. Not the empty promises of puffed up IPOs and greed that characterized Web 1.0.

Real stuff that matters.

Char, put me down for $250. And I hope everyone will be watching to see how this turns out. If this type of stuff is happening right here in the USA, I for one want to see it exposed and stopped.