As the MSM (mainstream media) explore the newfangled movement called "moblogging" (basically, content posted to a blog via a mobile phone), it's probably good to point out that the idea really isn't so newfangled after all.

An entry in Wikipedia says  "the first post to the web from a mobile user was from Steve Mann in 1995. He used a wearable computer, a more elaborate predecessor to modern moblogging devices. The first post to the Internet from an ordinary mobile device is believed to be by Tom Vilmer Paamand in Denmark in May 2000."

The term itself was first coined in 2002. That's right around the same time two important books came on the scene that really foreshadowed the development of ideas like moblogging, citizen journalism and other such 'phenomena": Howard Rheingold's "Smart Mobs" and Michael Lewis' "The Future Just Happened."

When I interviewed Rheingold in 2002, he said his first "a-ha" moment about how mobile communications would change the world came in Tokyo in 2000.

The second moment came several months later, in Helsinki, when Rheingold observed three Finnish teens meet two adults. As they talked, one teenager looked at his phone, smiled, and showed it to his friends, who also smiled. But they didn't show it to the adults. Everyone kept talking as if it was nothing unusual. "That's when I realized that some norm I didn't know about had permeated society," he says.

In the case of moblogging, mobile technology allows large groups of otherwise unconnected people to express their opinions, support, ideas, about a particular issue, quickly and while on the move. For instance, it allowed Londoners a way to say that they would not be intimidated by the actions of a group of extremists.

Rheingold, however, was not necessarily an optimist about the use of mobile technology. "Organized crime, terrorists, and people who want to sell you things," he says, "are going to use the same medium you do to wreak destruction and intrude on your privacy." (An example of this was the use of mobile phones to detonate bombs in the Madrid bombings.)

Moblogging also hints at something else - that people no longer need to wait for the media to either cover a news story, or to shape the way that opinions about that story are presented. In the past, after an attack like the one in London, people would have written letters to their local paper, or talked to radio or TV reporters.

Not anymore. If they want, they can file their opinions, photos, even music, to a site on the Internet using their mobile phones (or other computer-like devices) a few moments after something happens.

Michael Lewis's book, and his eponymous series for the BBC, showed how the Internet 'democratize" this flow of information.( Lewis' theory is that "intelligence" always moves towards the "fringes of the network." What he means, I believe, is that big cultural changes don't start in the center, but on the edges.)

While some media, like the BBC and a few others, have moved quickly to adopt and assimilate these new methods of expression which started 'at the edges,' like moblogging, other media - newspapers in particular - have viewed them with some suspicion. Lewis's point is that the changes will happen regardless of how the MSM view them, so it's better to find ways to make them work for them, rather than just oppose them.

As a Canadian, I suppose I should revel in the success of Research in Motion (RIM)'s Blackberry - the wireless handheld e-messaging system that has become to popular, and so addictive, that it is sometimes called 'crackberry.'

Afterall, last year the Canada-based company had "150% year-over-year subscriber growth and a rising market capitalization," according to Victoria Murphy at Forbes.com. Things have slowed a bit this year (only 135 percent growth - we should all have such problems), and competitors are coming on the scene faster than bugs at a picnic, but RIM's little black box is likely to dominate the market for a while yet.

So when someone asked me the other day if I had a Blackberry, they were surprised when I said no, and that I didn't plan to get one. It's not that I shun technology - far from it. I have an Ericsson cell phone that works just about anywhere in the world, and a Palm Tungsten 5 wireless organizer that I practically sleep with.

But for me, there comes a point when you have to say 'enough is enough.' And the Blackberry is that point. You see, I just don't need to be in touch with people on such a constant timeframe - or maybe's it's a 'don't-want-to-be-in-touch' with people that often.

Whenever I think Blackberry, I think of my good friend Sue Gardner, one of the top guns at CBC.ca. I don't get to talk to Sue face-to-face that often, so I like to get in a good gabfest whenever we find ourselves at the same conference or seminar. That is, if I can separate her from her Blackberry.

Sue must check that thing every 90 seconds, which can be rather disconcerting in the middle of a good conversation. And she's not the only one - Blackberry users are forever stealing a glance to see what's in the machine's in box.

Now, it's my personal view that other than my wife, my children and the school nurse (who can all reach me on my cellphone all over the world, as I mentioned), most of my e-mail can wait until I get a chance to sit down with my laptop or at my work machine. (Just to be fair, here's a great letter to the technology section of the Globe and Mail in Toronto explaining why this woman considers the folks at RIM her heroes.) Personally, if I was going to use a similiar machine, I would use a Sidekick because of the instant messaging capabilities (because heaven knows it's not a very good phone).

Perhaps it's a sign of being older and wiser. (Perhaps it's a sign of just being cheap and  not wanting to spend $500 on a 'handheld wireless device'') But you have to know when to say no to technology, even when it's really cool, in order to save yourself a little space in the data smog.

If there are any mainstream journalists who still doubt the value of 'citizen journalism' (and what others call grassroots journalism), the events in London on Thursday showed how wrong those doubts may be.

All day long, sites like the BBC and The Guardian carried photos shot by survivors of the three  subway blasts. The photos, taken with cellphone cameras, were often eerily effective at conveying the subterrenean hell the tube had become for many people. But they also showed the calm and sense of purpose exhibited by those same people in a danerous situation. The BBC later reported that its website had received almost 1000 photos taken by cellphone and 20 pieces of amateur video.

In a piece for the Washington Post entitled "Witness to History," Robert MacMillan writes that on Thursday citizen journalists passed the breaking news test. He points out that there have been cases in the past when mainstream media have used the efforts of people on the scene for their reports - Abraham Zapruder's film of the assassination of President Kennedy being perhaps the most famous example. But MacMillian believes that "citizen journalism is different."

It often covers a wide territory from soliciting arts and entertainment coverage to providing the angle on the city council budget that the cub reporter might have missed.

The London attacks moved the trend to a new level. Web sites from the BBC's to the Guardian's provided eyewitness accounts, some showing up as little as an hour or two after the first bomb went off. Rather than relying on unfocused, rambling blog entries, the London papers and the Beeb ran pithy postings from the people who were there. They ran alongside the staff reporters' accounts and presumably with the same amount of editing.

Dan Gillmor, formerly of the San Jose Mercury News and one of the leading proponents of 'participatory' journalism, makes the point in MacMillan's piece that what happened in London was different than what happened after the tsunami in Southeast Asia.

The tsunami prompted bloggers to post thousands of video entries and journal-style stories that circulated the Internet in a huge swarm of unedited data. London, he said, showed how that data could be edited like traditional news and fill the gaps that the news could not.

Gillmor has created a 'Citizen Journalists Pledge'. Dan asks people who sign up for the Bayosphere citizen journalism site he has created to cover the San Francisco area:

I report and produce news explaining the facts as fairly, thoroughly, accurately and openly as I can.

* Fair: I'm always listening to and taking account of other viewpoints;

* Thorough: I learn as much as I can in the time I have, and point to original sources when possible;

* Accurate: I get it right, checking my facts, correcting errors promptly and incorporating new information I learn from the community;

* Open: I explain my biases and conflicts, where appropriate.

Jon Dube's Cyberjournalist (a site associated with the Online News Association - note: where I'm the executive director) is attempting a comprehensive listing of all the current citizen media initiatives under way in cyberspace. Blogger Amy Gahran has also started "I, Reporter," a blog that looks at the issues around citizen journalists, and often offers suggestions on ways mainstream media sites can work with people in their communities interested in contributing.

This won't be the last time that we're hearing about citizen journalists. In fact, you can almost see them becoming a major component of all major news stories, especially ones like London. The media world is changing around us almost every day. And news organizations ignore ideas like citizen journalism at their own peril.