I’m reporting from the Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit at the Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Va.

My friend Emily Zanotti (American Princess) is giving one of her acclaimed talks on blogging. There is probably no one better at explaining blogging to those who, even a decade later, are still clueless about the power of blogging to get information to the masses.

I’ve been blogging, off an on, since 2001. I remember when people looked at you odd when you said “I blog.” Then I remember the explosion of blogs around 2004-2005 when it became a fad. Finally the blogging market has evened out to where many people blog and keep their sites updated regularly.

As we’ve seen here at West Virginia Watchdog, blogging is a powerful tool. To give an example, we wrote here about the Tides Foundation and Rockefeller Family Foundation funding anti-coal extremists (WV Watchdog, “ACORN’s Fingerprints on the Anti-Coal Movement,” and “Family Ties – The Rockefeller Family Fund and West Virginia“). Mark Tapscott with the Washington Examiner saw the pieces and asked me to write a op/ed version of it for his newspaper (Washington Examiner, “Leftist foundations work against coal“) . That came out in both the Washington and San Francisco Examiners, both print and online. That op/ed was picked up by the Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit, “FRIENDS OF THE WORKING MAN?“).

All because of a two-week old website in West Virginia. I strongly encourage people to blog. Judging by the questions coming from the people in the seminar, I think there are a great many people who will go home and get their blogs set up.

I’ll be blogging all day from the summit.

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