Jeremy Wright mentioned -- in passing during an IM chat, today -- the flap about Technorati's increasing interest in making money from the company's tracking of who's quoting who in the Blogosphere. He pointed me to Doc Searls piece, that does a good job of summarizing the merging controversy.

This imbloglio arose from a Silicon Valley Watcher piece by Tom Foremski, who implies that their is something immoral -- although not illegal -- from Technorati making money from the public data about links on the web. Now, I am a guy that has harrassed Technorati right and left about bugs, lags, and various other gaffes (like the Niall Kennedy political satire mess), but I have consistently argued for the utility of the service. I even wished publicly that they would get purchased by Google or Yahoo so that the service would work more reliably.

But I think it perfectly reasonable for them to try to make money ("monetize", as Tom writes) from the analysis they are making about the Blogosphere's interconnections.

There is a deep-rooted theme of opposition to money making in various quarters of the Blogosphere. As just one painful example, the near-riot at Bloggercon as a result of the "Making Money" session (see here) as a result of Dave Winer's philosophical dislike of money making through blogging. Personally, I am all for making money: Corante is not a non-profit, for example. So when Tom asks,

Am I a bit harsh on Technorati? I hope not, it has every right to make a living from its work, it shares a considerable amount of data it collects with the entire blogging community for free, and it is just one of many companies selling the blogosphere.

I suggest we tone down the rhetoric, and argus the basic question: Is it OK to make money in the Blogosphere? I think it is. Doc cuts through the fog, as usual:

[from Department of Connections] Okay, a few questions.

First, How many witnesses reported on what Peter said on that panel?
Answer: One. Another panelist, by the way. How many bloggers jumped to conclusions based on what one guy said?

Next: Are marketers clueless or cluefull about blogging?
If the answer is "clueless," then don't we want them to get the clues? Especially if all the raw data is nothing more than what's been published on the free and open Web, and what's sold is data about data rather than "repurposed content"?

Next: Do we think they can get all the clues they need from search engines and feeds of blogs and searches about blogs and other stuff that's already out there?
If the answer is no, then what is wrong with selling those clues to people willing to pay for them?

Nothing is wrong with it, Doc.

I suspect that one of the issues here is the lack of cluefulness of Technorati, however, who have seemed to surprise everyone with their intention to make money -- and lots of it -- from its activities and services. Here' is a great opportunity for Dave Sifry and company to leverage what they know about blog dynamics to head off a potential big stink. Remember the "Founding Fathers" flap from the Always On/Technorati Open Media 100 announcement?

A few recommendations to Sifry and Technorati:

1. Its ok to make money, so don't cave on the core issue. State, unequivocally, that you plan to make money, and have always said so.
   
2. The raw information you are using is public, and anyone has access to it.
   
3. The service that Technorati offers is important, and you will continue to offer many elements of that service free, as a public service.
   
4. It is true that services -- such as Google search -- can have an enormous influence on business and society. That's why Google's share price is where it is, and why so many people work so hard at search engine optimization.
   
5. Technorati will inevitably -- to the degree that it is successful -- influence the behavior of those who would like to benefit from the power thet comes from a high Technorati ranking, just like the lengths that people will go to in order to get a high Google ranking. As a result, Technorati will need to have very scrupulous business practices in its dealings with those to whom it sells its services.

This is likely to flare up into a big imbloglio, with many perspectives swirling around, and a lot of hand waving and finger pointing. But I think it is a tempest in a teapot. The implicit social connections that blog linking imply are public: they are there for anyone to see, and the individuals involved actively create those links with that in mind. This is not some sort of surreptitious surveillance, like video cameras on street lights, or someone tapping our phone calls. And more importantly, as Doc suggests, the world is a better place if big corporations begin to take advantage of this information to figure out what people think is important, whose thoughts and observations matter, and how to better understand what is going on in the world. What is the alternative? We -- the Blogosphere -- are going to a lot of trouble to read and link to one others' writing out here; do we want the rest of the world to ignore it? We are trying hard to make sense of the world; it's stupid to think we would be better off if the world doesn't pay attention, and adapt to the feedback system we have become. The value of that feedback is enormous, and people should be free to make money from turning it into bite-sized chunks for companies that want to do better: build better products, provide better service, and innovate more quickly.

The Blogosphere is not some private club for those most actively engaged it in: its a global asset, a new means of understanding the world, and perhaps the best hope we have for making a better world. We cannot imagine for a minute that it belongs to us. It's bigger than that. It's bigger than us.