Four years into the new century, blogs were well embedded into the public consciousness as a legitimate form of media. Network news services, political advisors and even political candidates ran blogs to bring news and other information to the public. Blogs became viewed as important tools for reaching out to the public and expressing personal opinions on issues of the day. Politicians who were not actively campaigning started blogs as a simple means to keep in touch with and give solidarity to their constituents.
In 2005, several bloggers were recognized by Fortune Magazine and other sources for their contributions to society. Fortune Magazine named eight of these bloggers as business people that could not be ignored. They included Peter Rojas, Ben Trott, Robert Scoble and Xeni Jardin.
The popularity of blogs gave rise to a new form of social media and online presence that was dubbed Web 2.0. Web 2.0 referred to websites that were largely interactive, some of which had content that was fully created by users. Today, the term Web 2.0 has fallen out of favor as blogging and interactive websites have further blended with traditional websites, making a distinction between the two unnecessary. Many traditional websites now have a blog section, effectively combining the best of both types of websites.
Blogs have now been adopted by national governments. Israel was the first country to have an official blog, which was launched in 2007 by Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs David Saranga. Saranga’s campaign to makeover Israel’s public image also included a MySpace page, Facebook page and the first press conference held by a national government via Twitter.
In 2009, it was reported that blogging was one of the factors responsible for the decline of newspapers in the United States. Several newspapers had filed for bankruptcy or otherwise ending their circulation. President Barrack Obama was forced to make a public statement backing the importance of traditional media, stating that most newspapers upheld higher standards of fact checking and objectivity.
