I was intrigued that Google has plans to create a separate search tool specifically for blogs. In reading the Register’s article about it, I was led to this article by the same author from the April 3rd Register that essentially decries the ability of the blogging community, particularly the “A-list” tech bloggers, to transform the meaning of ideas in such a way that the original meaning is supplanted. Because of the incestuous linking amongst blogs, content from these authors takes precedent over other sources in Google’s PageRank system, forcing the original sources into virtual invisibility (a process called Googlewashing). The implication is that this is a form of censoring the original idea by driving it into obscurity.

The author talks about how it took a million people to create the original meaning of the term “Second Superpower” and only a few people to take it away. This is utter nonsense. First, you know as well as I do that it only took one person to create the term and associate a meaning with it. Second, the Web (and Google in particular) is not the only tool of meme propagation and if the term had some legs in its original form, then it would have been picked up more widely. But it really didn’t, mostly in my opinion because peace-seeking people don’t really want to be seen as part of the Superpower paradigm, with all of the inherent combatativeness that it implies. Third, he bemoans that this happened in only 42 days. Well, let me suggest that those 42 days included the 41 days after the mainstream media forgot about it.

I think the real issue is the short-sightedness of the author. How can a thriving community that works to create new meaning through interactivity and collaboration be a bad thing? Rather than bemoaning the “power” of the tech community, why not learn something from it? The question shouldn’t be why bloggers can make these transformations possible, but why more people aren’t making use of this unharnessed potential. I’m not saying there aren’t avenues for abuse, but the more participants, the more balanced the coverage will be.

I think I mostly resent the suggestion that bloggers are to blame for the loss of meaning, rather than celebrated for its creation and transformation. The author’s perspective seems far too limited, much like the music industry’s take on peer-to-peer. The one thing he did correctly was to repropagate the phrase’s original meaning by writing about it in relationship to blogging. This article has be much-discussed and heavily linked (already replacing some of those top 30 Google listings that are the crux of his argument), which has provided more people with the origin of the term than any other media had up to that point. He should be thanking bloggers for the exposure.