Weblog Collectives
Arnold Kling reports on an interesting study of artificial weblog communities. His results suggest that weblogs are valuable because they filter and distribute information efficiently. But who will reward the writers for the value they create. Kling offers an interesting speculation:
"No individual blog is the source of that value. I believe that this collective nature of the benefit of the blogging system is what makes it particularly difficult for an individualized economic model to be successful. Thus, I believe that neither the donation model nor the advertising model will prove to be viable (there may be some transitory exceptions). Instead, I think that payment mechanisms that reward collections of bloggers hold more promise for the long run."
I believe this is the first serious recognition of the economic potential of weblog cluster.