We were very excited to find that Bill Clinton, the ancient president of U.S, published his daily diary on the Internet –more precisely, in his Web Blog. We made our mind to talk about this blog but not get it audited because we are more than willing to discuss with the others how blogs function and what are their influences nowadays.

Blog: the growing power of media

Blogs (short for “weblogs”) are periodically updated journals, providing online commentary with minimal or no external editing. Every day, millions of online diarists, or “bloggers,” share their opinions with a global audience. They are usually presented as a set of “posts,” individual entries of news or commentary, in reverse chronological order. The posts often include hyperlinks to other sites, enabling commentators to draw upon the content of the entire World Wide Web.

Blogs can function as personal diaries, political analysis, advice columns on romance, computers, money, or all of the above. Their number has grown at an astronomical rate. In 1999, the total number of blogs was estimated to be around 50; five years later, the estimates range from 2.4 million to 4.1 million. The Web Blog we are about to audit is “Bill Clinton Daily diary” ---one of the most popular web blog in U.S. nowadays.

The Perseus Development Corporation, a consulting firm that studies Internet trends, estimates that by 2005 more than 10 million blogs will have been created. Media institutions have adopted the form as well, with many television networks, newspapers, and opinion journals now hosting blogs on their Web sites, sometimes featuring dispatches from their own correspondents, other times hiring full-time online columnists.

CLINTON VS Blog CLINTON?

The form of this web blog seems to be very laconic, but the contents are quite variegated. In the middle of the page, there is his diary posted by Clinton himself everyday, even these days he is in hospital there is still some one(Bobbi Lamoon ) to send the information to this web blog everyday .As far as we know, Bill Clinton started to publish his daily diary in this web blog from June 1st 2004, the day he finished his latest book.

There are the links with Hilary and the Democratic Party in the right side of this web blog, coupled with some other links in the left, like Johnny Carson Ultimate 10 DVD's collection, Jane Fonda's new autobiography: My Life So Far, China INC: How the rise of the next superpower challenges America and the world .It is very intersting, sometimes a little bit funny to see these various subject to be put in one page.

There are also some links like « University of Kansas – Clinton School of public service », « Clinton Global initiative at NYC » ,« Clinton Foundation », « Clinton library and «Museum store ». That must be Clinton, it seems he is that kind of person full of energy and interested in everything.
Let us have a look at the Bill Clinton’s daily diary:

“I woke up this morning. Looked to my right. Thank God Hillary's in Washington. I really don't have the stomach to be with her today. I'm in that mood where I just want to be left alone…”

---Tuesday, June 01, 2004

“I am depressed. Chelsea just called to ask if she could come over for the weekend. I had to resort to lies. I told her I had an appointment and that she should come tomorrow. I can't handle being alone with her. There is a lot of hurt still remaining from my stupid mistake with miss Lewinsky. “

--- Saturday, June 05, 2004

“I could've been great. But I gave it all up for a few moments of scoundrelous behavior. People will forget the good I did. They will only remember my moments of weakness. I could've been great. I could've had a funeral like president Reagan. I could've had the same outpouring of sadness. You only have one life. I had the great luck to be president. It's not many people who get the chance to be president. I threw it all away. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. Last night I wept in bed. Silently, because I didn't want to disturb Hillary. How could I have been so stupid? So stupid, stupid!”

--- Saturday, June 12, 2004

“I did my best writing the book. Can't do more. Still it's hard to open up like I did in my book. It's very intimate and personal. To be honest I don't know what to expect from the public. A hatchet or a pat on the shoulder and a "you did a good job". I'm nervous. Very nervous.”

--- Saturday, June 19, 2004

Believe or not, these sentences are from the ancient president’s diary, the same Bill Clinton, who was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term, who was able to point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country's history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare roles. In the world, he successfully dispatched peace keeping forces to war-torn Bosnia and bombed Iraq when Saddam Hussein stopped United Nations inspections for evidence of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He became a global proponent for an expanded NATO, more open international trade, and a worldwide campaign against drug trafficking. He drew huge crowds when he traveled through South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, and China, advocating U.S. style freedom.

When we first started to read we were keen to point out this blog must be a kind of political strategy of communication. Unfortunately, we found ourselves were so immersed in his daily life that nearly forgot our primary purpose. After finished almost his entire diary of June 2004, we had to say we were really touched, not by an ancient president, but an ordinary person, a father, and an average man. So, which one is the real Bill Clinton? This is the same person with the double faces; or, this is the true colour of him?

The Blogosphere?

Jimmy Orr, the White House Internet director, recently characterized the “blogosphere” (the all-encompassing term to describe the universe of weblogs) as instrumental, important, and underestimated in its influence. Blogs are already influencing U.S. politics. The top five political blogs together attract over half a million visitors per day. Most bloggers(Clinton must be counted) desire a wide readership, and conventional wisdom suggests that the most reliable way to gain Web traffic is through a link on another weblog. A blog that is linked to by multiple other sites will accumulate an ever increasing readership as more bloggers discover the site and create hyperlinks on their respective Web pages.

Blogs are becoming more influential because they affect the content of international media coverage. Increasingly, journalists and pundits take their cues about “what matters” in the world from weblogs. For salient topics in global affairs, the blogosphere functions as a rare combination of distributed expertise, real-time collective response to breaking news, and public-opinion barometer. What’s more, a hierarchical structure has taken shape within the primordial chaos of cyberspace. A few elite blogs have emerged as aggregators of information and analysis, enabling media commentators to extract meaningful analysis and rely on blogs to help them interpret and predict political developments.

Thus, enclosed is our question for this new blogosphere:

For the people, especially the most famous people like Clinton, who publish their personal diaries, is blog creating a new space for them to wipe out all the blots they ever made? This is a new kind of political strategy of communication to approach people, or, just to boost Hilary in the next American presidential election? Would the web blogs become the most powerful force to lead the public opinion in the near future or it might be sifted out because the other free softwares are going to be used?

We will see.