Just an addition: Having followed academic bloggers (usually economists, legal theorists and food enthusiasts) for several years now, I am convinced that it's quite possible to SPREAD information by: a) posting stuff on Sajha (minimal barrier to entry) b) writing for a newspaper (higher barrier ti entry) c) publishing stuff in a peer-reviewed journal (highest barrier to entry) In each case, the audience is different, and that's fine. In the lastest issue of National Interest, Peter Drucker writes: **************** The World Economy of Information Information as a concept and a distinct category is an invention of the 18th century--of the newspaper in England and the encyclopedia in France. Within a century, information became global with the development of the modern postal system in the 1830s, followed almost immediately by the electric telegraph and the first computer language, the Morse Code. But unlike the newspaper and the encyclopedia, neither the postal service nor the telegraph made information public. On the contrary, they made it "privileged communication." "Public information" by contrast--newspapers, radio, television--ran one way only, from the publisher to the recipient. The editor rather than the reader decided what was "fit to print." The Internet, in sharp contrast, makes information both universal and multi-directional rather than keeping it private or one-way. Everyone with a telephone and a personal computer has direct access to every other human being with a phone and a PC. It gives everyone practically limitless access to information. And it gives everyone the ability to create information at minimal cost, that is, to create his own website and become a "publisher." In the long run, the most important implication is probably the impact of information on mentality and awareness. It creates new affinities and new communities. ********