Adam Roberts at seriouseats.com correlates the integration of the Internet in the everyday lives of people and how blogging can affect business (specicially food blogging) in his recent post entitled “The Power of Food Blogging.”

Food bloggers are making a dent on the restaurant scene because of the way the Web has been integrated into our everyday life. New York Times food critic Frank Bruni, who began blogging on the paper’s site himself, says, “I think restaurant reviews on food blogs have an impact, because a curious, hesitant consumer who’s Internet-savvy—and these days, who isn’t?—can plug in a restaurant’s name and toggle between a dozen reviews on a dozen different sites without necessarily knowing much about the sites or seeking them out per se. The aggregate impression of a restaurant that this person gets, built from these reviews, has to have an impact. How could it not?”

I certainly prefer the idea of blogging as opposed to sites that allow users to register and leave semi-anonymous commentary on other business (sites like dinehere.ca, for example). Firstly, in most cases, the people who leave anonymous commentary are usually involved with said restaurant or worse, disgruntled and formerly of the restaurant. Secondly, there’s no recourse for a restaurant to address the situation if it’s negative. In most cases, given the opportunity, decent restaurants will make-right anything that has gone wrong.

That said, here’s a link to Adam’s article: http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/01/t…