QotW4: Santa Blogger.

**Note from The Blogger:
Go ahead and read on; it’s free.

My fellow bloggers may not know it, but they are the Santa Clauses of the virtual world. Blog posts are their gifts; The world is the recipient. Every time they update their blogs, they add to the rich pool of information present on the internet. And this they do for free. Unlike most of today’s journalism, which is sold for money, “the weblog comes out of the gift economy.” (Rosen, 2003)

What is the gift economy? It is an economic system where goods and services are “offered without the expectation of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo.” (Kollock, 1999) Status, in a gift economy, is not accorded to the wealthy, but “to those who give the most to other.” (Pinchot, 1995) The most important thing about gift economies is that the gift must always be passed on, instead of selfishly owned. To many, this may seem like a utopian ideal that cannot be achieved. Robert Cialdini, however, begs to differ. As recorded in his book, Influence: Science and Practice, the rule of reciprocation governs all human societies and makes us “obligated to the future repayment of favors, gifts, invitations, and the like.” (Cialdini, 2001) By this reciprocity rule, gift economies not only exist in our world, they thrive.

Gift economies have come a long way, dating back to the Stone Age, when the Trobriand Islanders participated in Kula exchange. The Kula exchange, also known as the Kula ring, is a “ceremonial exchange system… (where) valuables are… traded purely for purposes of enhancing one’s social status and prestige.” (Kula ring, 2007) Since then, gift economies have been evolving and flourishing. The internet, for example, has evolved from traditional gift economies. It “started humbly as an educational resource based on free personal and organizational sharing” (Veale, 2003) and has now become a host to many prosperous virtual gift economies which transcend time and space limitations.

The blogosphere is one of the gift economies that thrive on the World Wide Web. Although there are some who are paid to blog, majority of the bloggers update their personal sites on their own initiative, without monetary motivation. Academic bloggers, like my fellow classmates and I, analyze other sources to address a certain issue and pass the knowledge that we gain on to our readers as a gift through our academic blogs. We post our research findings on our academic blogs, not for any personal gains, but simply for the purpose of sharing information.

Other non-business blogs that do not offer information support the blogging gift economy by providing recreation as a gift (Pollard, 2005). Being an ardent reader of more than thirty blogs, this is definitely true for me. It has become my daily habit to visit all those blogs to check for updates. A fellow blogger finds himself in a similar situation. On his 16th June 2002 post on his blog - http://radio.weblogs.com/, he stated that “as the net gets more and more commercial and more and more advertising driven, (he) just don't read Salon or MSN or whatever. (He) read blogs instead.” As we can see, blogs pose “a great threat… to television, radio, and other forms of recreation… (like) movies… and even recreational reading.” (Pollard, 2005)

Another gift that blogs provide is the “(creation of) powerful virtual relationships.” (Pollard, 2005) A blog can tell readers so much about the blogger that they can actually ‘know’ the blogger without ever meeting him/her. That is not all that a blog can do to enhance relationships. The commenting function that blogs provide allows communication to go two ways; readers can not only read the blog, but also publish their opinions regarding the blog posts. This enables blog readers to break out of usual passive reading and actively communicate with the blogger. In this way, blogs serve as effective social networking tools which encourage the growth of social circles in depth. Simply put, blogs speed up the formation of close relationships.

All in all, the blogging scene on the internet is no doubt a gift economy that serves good purpose. While some still scoff at blogging being a waste of time, bloggers have already proven weblogs to be worthy of existence through their generous giving to readers. Fret not, fellow Santas, because there are some like Tom Haskins, who believe that “bloggers are going the extra mile and beyond the call of duty” to make “unrewarded contributions” to all web users. (Haskins, 2007) So be encouraged, and keep up the giving!

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References:

Cialdini, Robert B. (2001). Influence: Science and Practice. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gift economy. (2007, February 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:50, February 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gift_economy&oldid=105681971

Haskins, Tom. (2007, January 7). “Blogging as a gift economy” Retrieved February 9, 2007 from http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2007/01/blogging-as-gift-economy.html

Kollock, Peter. (1999). 'The Economies of Online Cooperation; Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace" Retrieved February 9, 2007 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Kula ring. (2007, January 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:03, February 9, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kula_ring&oldid=103681571

Pinchot, Gifford (1995). "The Gift Economy" Retrieved February 6, 2007 from http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/PinchotG.htm

Pollard, Dave. (2005). "Blogs and the Gift Economy as 'Disruptive Innovations'" Retrieved February 9, 2007 from http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/categories/blogsBlogging/2005/08/24.html#a1253

Rosen, Jay. (2003, October 16). “What’s Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism?” Retrieved February 9, 2007, from http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2003/10/16/radical_ten.html

Veale, Kylie J. (2003). “Internet gift economies: Voluntary payment schemes as tangible reciprocity” First Monday, 8(12). Retrieved February 9, 2007, from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/veale/index.html