Debbie Weil's questions about the advisability and ethics of ghostwritten CEO blogs raises a broader question about the future of blog standards. If blogs become as widespread as websites, will the same community standards be enforced (or enforceable)? Will the average reader know (or care) about the standards? Amy Gahran rightly pointed out in her comment that today ghost written blogs (or other types of phony blogs for that matter) will be outed by the blogosphere. That works in online communities where there are sufficient numbers of independent bloggers who care about such things. Isn't it possible, perhaps likely, that online environments will emerge where people are completely oblivious to today's standards?

Will there be different standards and expectations for different blogosphere communities? For example, do you distinguish between individual blogs with a single voice and group or corporate blogs? Even within individual blogs, there must be different levels of expectation for the personal musings blog, the citizen journalist blog, the industry expert blog, the enthusiast blog, or the CEO blog.

If you spend a lot of time reading, commenting and/or writing blogs, it's easy to assume that the blogosphere standards are universal. But when I step away from my computer and go out and talk to people, I find almost universal ignorance of a blog ethic. Whether I talk to students, or to engineers, or to managers ranging from manufacturing to services, I find many who read about blogs and hear about blogs in the mainline media. But very few say they actually read blogs. Fewer still get RSS feeds, or know what it is. Almost none have commented on a blog. I find far more students actively involved with social media like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube than with blogs. If blogging is to continue its torrid rate of growth, it seems to me the blogosphere may be approaching the point where it transitions from a small village ethic to a multi-layered urban ethic. What's your take?

Don Dunnington