The Guardian analyses the impact of its anti-protectionist blog KickAAS in a rather po-faced way.
“One of the reasons for the attention that it got could have been the novelty of a “serious” blog with a dedicated political purpose. This was at a time when Blogdom was wondering whether blogs could be use for serious, non navel-gazing purposes.
KickAAS was, of course, a predictable failure, and it had no effect at all on the Cancun talks. However, it brought people of all political persuasions from around the world together to discuss policy and tactics.
In this way, it may have raised awareness about the potential of blogs to further a cause, but there clearly needs to be a long term-strategy, as well as a tactical website, in place.”
KickAAS is certainly not the first ‘serious’ blog, and the fact that it may not have had the impact desired may be entirely due to tactical rather than strategic methods. KickAAS has failed to mesh itself into a community by leveraging links in the way that successful weblogs do.