A very good analysis in the Guardian newsblog on the role blogs have played in the Asia tsunami disaster and the long-term catalyzing effect this will have on the significance of blogs in the future:
The tsunami may have a profound effect on blogs. These self-published sites have played a huge role in the telling of the horror that struck – and continues to strike – south-east Asia, and it seems inevitable the impact of their role will reverberate on long after the disaster, and subsequent relief effort, have faded from our newspapers and TV screens.
[…] For the first time, powerful coverage of a huge news event was not brought to you purely by established media. An army of "citizen journalists" played a new role, perhaps all the more vital considering the effect vivid reportage, online and off, has had on the subsequent fundraising efforts.
[…] It would be obscene to remember this tsunami as anything other than a huge natural disaster, a human tragedy on an unimaginable scale. But for those watching this small, comparatively insignificant world of media, this may also be remembered as a time when citizen reporting, through the force of its huge army of volunteers and their simple type and publish weblog mechanisms, finally found its voice, and delivered in a way the established media simply could not.
Guardian Unlimited | Newsblog | Blogs’ new place at the media table
Seeing blogs as part of the new media landscape is also a complementary view to that Shel and I discussed in our podcast on Monday – how this awful tragedy may be seen in the coming months as a catalyst for the ‘globalization’ of blogs – connectivity and linking in far more meaningful ways.