The momentum of RSS is unstoppable. Yesterday, IDG announced the first conference devoted to RSS. I’m helping put together the speaker list. If you know someone good please contact me at indexedforever at gmail dot com. See you in NYC.

John Udell’s InfoWorld column this week (“The Network is the Blog”) discusses blogging in the context of the blog network. He argues that the blog network filters and retransmits knowledge is a way that approximates a human nervous system or insects acting as a cooperative group. As a proof point he notes that he subscribers to more people than publications, knowing that people will alert him if a publication contain important information. Thus, a subconscious facility of the blog network is that it can help filter the crush of information.

I’ll take it further, I believe the blog network is mimicking human conscious thought. Let’s take an example.

I blog about the Churchill Club Top 10 Tech Trends. I report on Roger McNamee’s belief that it is a tough time for software vendors because we are a Do It Yourself period for IT. I disagree citing my market experience, particularly the excitement we are seeing around RSS. This generates many comments and links all from people I have never met. Notably Doc Searls comments via his blog. Doc agrees on RSS and feels that we are not in a DIY period, but rather the IT industry is on an irreversible march towards DIY. This generates more comments, notably Roger Lee, commenting on Doc’s blog asserts that everything in life is on a DIY trajectory, and brings it back to RSS as an enabler. Doc comments further… well, you get the point.

Ideas ping around the blog network like firing neurons. One node takes an input, gets excited, processes the idea in the context of its experiences and comes to a conclusion. Other nodes do the same. And ideas are discussed and developed like a conscious thought.

So can the blog network help process your ideas?

Over at Mike Rowehl’s blog, he is trying to put his finger on what is really different about blogging as a collaboration technology, noting that Blogs are just HTML on a web site, only worse looking.

Mike should read Gladwell not McLuhan - small changes to contagious ideas yield disproportionate effects. And personal publishing is a contagious idea. You publish. Others comment on your ideas on their blog. Still others comment on those comments on their blogs. Very quickly there are hundreds of comments and even more readers. Then you realize you are spending too much time on your blog and reluctantly go back to your day job.

So what are these small changes that have had a disproportionate effect?
Blogs are much easier to use than home page builders, so people write.
The writing is in one place, so readers get context.
It is easier to link, so readers can find you.
It is easier to get linked to, which confers legitimacy and trust.
Via RSS, it is easier to maintain a persistent link with you readers so they pay attention.

Gutenberg did not raise money from the Medici, go public and buy a huge mansion on the Rhone. He is remembered because the printing press allowed information dissemination that facilitated the rise of democracy. More interestingly it happened outside of his homeland. And so I think it will go with blogging.