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Think tank blogging

QandO looks at old school organizations (MSM and politicians, among others) dipping a toe in the blogosphere and notes this:

Surprisingly — to me, anyway — Think Tanks have been relatively slow to take advantage of the blogosphere, and relatively unsuccessful when they do. The Cato Institute has recently moved into the blogosphere and they seem to be doing it fairly well, but they seem to be the exception. Other think tank blogs (From The Heartland, for example) seem to be fairly cautious or inexpert at promoting themselves. I’m not sure why that is, but I suspect that, though a good blogger can always turn out a good blog for a think tank, think tankers don’t necessarily make a successful blog.

Anyway, those are my candidates for successful blog adapters. Who else is leading the pack in the evolution of blogging?

I tend to agree that think tanks haven’t embraced blogs as quickly as one might expect, but it’s not entirely surprising.  Think tankers–i.e. analysts/wonks–write for academia and policymakers, and such output generally doesn’t make for edgy online material.  That definitely needs to change, though, and quickly.  (Personally, I continue to wonder when Goldwater and Fordham will start blogging–they’re practically halfway there.) 

I don’t know if we at Edspresso are on the front end of blog evolution, but I’d like to think we offer a different twist on blogging.  We’re somewhere between a group blog and an online magazine, and interesting things already appear to be happening.  I’m still quite pleased with this, for example. 

As far as blog innovation goes, vlogging ("video blogging" for the uninitiated) looks to be the next big thing, so by extension the hybrid convergence thing going on over at Hot Air seems pretty nifty to me.  With the price of admission continuing to drop through increasingly cheaper means of delivery, it’s only a matter of time before more hands get in on the game.  Which, of course, begs the ever-present question of online media: will the business model ever become truly self-sustaining?