“The most common way for a story to get started is for mainstream media to comment about the world of blogs, Google, websites, or the development of some new facet of the Internet. Of those stories we traced, the least common way for a story to get started is for a blogger to start a new topic, although this was the case in two stories of the 45 we studied.|When a story starts in mainstream media which cuts across blogger opinion, it is likely that a blogosphere story gets started on three or four blogs almost at the same time and sometimes even more. Then within a day, the story becomes more focused…” Elwyn Jenkins —Dynamics of a Blogosphere Story (Microdoc News)

Excellent observations and a useful analysis of four types of blogging posts: opinion, vote, reaction, and summation. I think it’s also useful to note that, because the outside world typically does not respond on an individual basis to what individual bloggers have to say — that is, Google does not have a weblog where it comments on the rumors circulating on the blogosphere — that sparks lots of people to offer their own commentary.