Lee Gomes at the WSJ zooms in on the revolution that has happened in the tech world: the shift of power from conventional media to a small elite of tech bloggers:

[from WSJ.com - Portals]

The reality is that while there are now as many tech blogs as stars in the sky, only a tiny fraction of them matter. And those that do aren't part of some proletarian information revolution, but instead have become the tech world's new elite. Reporters for the big mainstream newspapers and magazines, long accustomed to fawning treatment at corporate events, now show up and find that the best seats often go to the A-list bloggers. And living at the front of the velvet rope line means the big bloggers are frequently pitched and wooed. In fact, with the influence peddling universe in this state of flux, it's not uncommon for mainstream reporters, including the occasional technology columnist, to lobby bloggers to include links to their print articles.

The easiest way to follow this world is via a useful blog-tracking service called tech.memeorandum.com. The site runs off software written by Gabe Rivera, a former Intel compiler programmer. It sifts through hundreds of technology-oriented blogs to find the hour's hot topics and who is saying what about them. The results are presented concisely in a single place, updated every few minutes. Another site, blogniscient.com, offers a similar service. (It is apparently important in the tech blog world to pick a name that is as awkwardly unspellable as possible.)

The thing that is interesting in this revolution is the number shift: it is not necessary to reach millions. A blogger can be enomously influential with only a few thousand daily readers, if those readers are themselves influential. As we break away from broadcast media conventions, mass influence is less relevant. What appears in its place is social relevance: what matters is who you are influencing.