If any of you are as connected to the world wide web as I am (and I assume you are if you spend your free time reading blogs) then you have probably heard about the recent death of Cnet.com senior editor James Kim.
About two days ago James Kim's family was found alive in the Oregon after spending more then nine days alone in the frigid cold. In hope of trying to find help for his family, James Kim set off into the wilderness to try to do something and not just freeze to death. Last night however, it was reported that rescuers found James' body near a ravine.
Almost as soon as the announcement was made the news spread across the net just about faster then anything I have ever seen. This news however was spread not through the traditional sites like CNN, or Yahoo news, but rather through the blogosphere. As I opened up Bloglines to review my feeds for the evening, I quickly became aware of the cascading effect that was occurring around the blogs. Of course the technology blogs such as Engadget and Gizmodo and several others were the obvious sources that expressed their regret to the loss of James Kim. I was surprised however, to find out that some of the craft and knitting blogs that my girlfriend subscribes to also featured news of regret over the story.
Initially I thought that perhaps this was just some heartfelt expressions that were being expressed out of regret, but I later came to find out that some of the bloggers on these craft blogs were actually good friends with Kim's wife. Other close friend's of the Kim family also appear to be bloggers themselves and include authors from the site Engadget and others. As I read this, I quickly came to realize that the blogosphere is much more of a tight knit community then I initially thought.
That fact has always been talked about and discussed before here and there, but this is the first time that I think the fact is really being highlighted as the blogging community struggles to cope with the loss of one of its own rising media stars. These bloggers are not just nameless screen names behind a keyboard, but they actually communicate with each other all the time and operate in the same professional and personal circles. They go to the same press events and product releases, and I assume they generally hang out together during those times.
Through the blogosphere readers and writers have had a relationship of intimacy that has never really been seen before in the journalism world. Not only do the bloggers write news, but readers write back to them in the form of comments, and participate as never before seen. Often times the bloggers will respond personally to readers comments, which really creates a relationship that has never existed before. As these levels of relationships unfold and play out we can see how bloggers grow with each other, and readers grow along with them developing personal relationships which create dedicated readers and dedicated writers. For those in the tech community (and apparently other blogging communities) the loss of James Kim does not seem to have been just another report about a journalist tragically lost as we may have seen on the TV news, but it instead feels as if they have lost someone they actually knew. I would suspect that many bloggers out there professional or otherwise have developed different levels of relationships with their fellow bloggers and readers, and this blogger finds the response that has developed out of this sad story particularly remarkable. It certainly demonstrates the power of the online community, and I would not be surprised if in the next few days that same community mobilizes itself to develop a fund, or trust or something else in James' honor.
I think this whole series of events makes one think about the impact that the blogosphere really has on the society that we live in these days. For better or for worse we have developed a new level of intimacy and relationships with people online that would never have existed outside in the real world and that means something.
My girlfriend summed my thoughts quite nicely in an email she sent to me today when we were discussing this topic. She said, "I always found it sort of cool to stumble across a new Blog, and notice that half their links are ones I subscribe to. I don't know these people at all, yet somehow I am in the same group as them."? I think that sums the whole issue up quite nicely. We all have some sort of connection.
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James Kim blogosphere network
