SEC Chairman is a fan of blogs!

In honor of the tenth anniversary of blogging, The Wall Street Journal interview a handful of noteworthy minds on the impact of blogging on society. For investors, the most interesting comments came from SEC Chairman Chris Cox:

As investors strive to make sense of the ever-higher mountains of data that we're buried under, the services of bloggers, whom we can imagine sitting at home in their pajamas trolling the Internet for us, free of charge, are likely to be an increasingly consequential addition to the investor's tool kit...

Do bloggers portend more lasting ramifications for the securities world? But of course. Shareholders are on the move, and technology has given them a cheaper and more-effective means to communicate. From improved price discovery to better corporate governance, investors, markets, managements and boards will never be the same.

It's encouraging to see that Chairman of the SEC recognizes the positive impact that blogs can have on financial markets, and all of us at BloggingStocks are thrilled to be "sitting at home in pajamas trolling the internet for you, free of charge."

His comment that bloggers can lead to "better corporate governance" is particularly interesting. Bloggers have the space to rant about executives in a way that few print publications to do. In the past, I've used BloggingStocks to try my hand at shareholder activism involving a company I own shares of, and I plan on doing more of that in the not too distant future.

Bloggers like Gary Weiss have used the internet to expose fraud and corporate shenanigans.

There's no question that blogging has already made a big impact on the investment world and, as it gains acceptance (The SEC chairman endorsing blogging!), I would look for that influence to increase.