Most Influential Blogs Series: Arianna Has Come a Long Way…

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For the politics category of our most influential blogs study, it’s our pleasure to share 463 Communications partner and fellow Next Fifteen friend Jim Hock’s view on the shifting landscape of Beltway communications…

These sites duked their way to mainstream media influence in our study of the most influential political blogs

“As we all know, Barack Obama has completely changed what new media means to all of us. His campaign revolutionized the way a campaign uses technology, the Internet and the media to get its positive message about change out. While I believe the message and the person were more the reason than the technology per se, the technology was pivotal in helping the campaign organize a grass roots network for change like never before in our history.

“And he completely changed the relationship that the White House has with bloggers. In his first press conference, he called on Sam Stein of The Huffington Post for a question (Obama Calls on Huffington Post’s Sam Stein). That was a first in history and I am sure he’ll make many more firsts in the months ahead. Think about it – our new President calling on a blog that didn’t even exist just a few short years ago (and one created by a very smart woman – Arianna Huffington – that once showed up for a political debate against my old boss Senator Feinstein in place of her husband Michael. Thankfully, Mrs. Feinstein said no to that arrangement).

“So many of us were blog junkies during the campaign and I for one had to go through ‘blog detox’ for a few weeks after by not checking the great sites of Huff Post, Daily Kos, FiveThirtyEight, Talking Points Memo or others on a minute by minute basis.But as this intriguing report from Context Analytics shows, these sites are here to stay and have changed the way Americans consume news and information forever. Let’s just hope we stay as tuned in and engaged to the big, important policy issues such as reforming our health care system like we did during the campaign. I promise to try…”

Jim Hock

Partner, 463 Communications

This post is a part of a series on the Power 50, a study of the most influential blogs as cited by mainstream media.