The point I wish to make today is that bloggers have a need to be responsible and accountable to their audience. There is a lot at stake. As that audience grows, and they become a center of (some) influence, a blogger gains authority. Society can give it and society can take it away.

But, there is also a bigger threat, which is that the corporate world wants to take over the bloggers' world.

Bloggers are in fact Talking Heads for society's many-to-many networks whereas the broadcast talking heads in the one-to-many networks are centers of influence for business corporations, which I refer to as the sell-side.

Yesterday I made a point that a person like State Street Bank's chief market strategist Ned Riley is a clown in that he is not accountable to the audience (society), my point being that he is accountable to his corporate employer, but that society and his employer do not share the same values (very often).

In fact, as the employer of any Corporate Talking Head is further stressed by the rat race called Earnings Expectations (which is shareholders' demands for profits and senior employee demands for superior compensation), the gulf between the corporation and society widens.

The gap is now so wide, in fact, that the Sheriff of Society, Eliot Spitzer, has to step into the fray in many cases to protect us from the worst of the corporate miscreants. The sell-side (mutual funds, NYSE, insurance companies and others attacked by Spitzer) don't like it of course because it is costing them billions in fines and legal costs, but there is little they can do about it because Spitzer has the backing of society.

I have even written about Blogger Spitzer. He is one of us.

In my blog, I have often spoken about Society's Talking Heads who have gained a measure of success in the corporate world but who have been viciously attacked, with considerable efforts made by the sell-side to put them in their place.

In recent years, corporate interests have confronted certain powerful representatives of society like Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, George Soros and Michael Moore (which is an obvious case that society is not homogenous).

I'd like to assert that Donald Trump is another one who represents society, and that Mark Burnett is a genius for recognizing that.

Corporations have for a few years now been trying to extend their influence into our world by bringing a few of us into theirs. Reality TV, for example, is an exploitation of both nameless and well-known characters for corporate purposes. But, in this case, some of us are being given more than our "fifteen minutes of fame."

And when that happens, because in some cases the individual has performed well enough in both worlds to earn a measure of authority, there is an opportunity for the individual to become a corporate brand, a la Donald Trump, Virgin's Richard Branson, Blog Maverick Mark Cuban, Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey.

Blogging is a powerful tool for any individual in society. It could be a springboard to financial success in the corporate world or it could be one to bestow benefits upon society.

In my case, I intend to use blogging as a tool for attaining social equity. I have made it clear I am no longer interested in the corporate world, because I have been there and earned a measure of success there, but in doing so I was exposed to its dark side, and I found it not a very nice place.

I realized that I could do so much more for both myself and for society by quitting the sell-side, and then spending the rest of my time (on this earth) exposing the Corporate World's problems.

But the Corporate World is a worthy competitor, and should never be undersold.

Corporations are now beginning to see blogging as the Power of the People, and I say they will do all they can to confront it, control it, and exploit it " because that's what they do.

"Sell to the masses; live like the classes." That is the motto Big Business owners and managers live by.

Society's free enterprisers, independent entrepreneurs and small business owners like myself can fight to protect our Bloggers' World, however. But, first we must understand what it is we have, why blogging is an agent for change (for social equity), and all about the authorities and responsibilities that come with a weblog.

If on the other hand we bloggers really believe there is, in our personal actions, no accountability to society -" like spammers, for instance " then we will inevitably lose control of blogging to the corporate world. The Internet will then become taxed, regulated and controlled by the corporate world, and bloggers will have to register themselves, and start to be accountable to our opponents.

It is my view that because of the structure of network models like the Web and weblogs, the corporate versus society war I speak of will be a tough one for the sell-side to win. But it is clearly a possibility that society must contemplate.

A few weeks ago, I watched a really scary interview on CNBC with Sumner M. Redstone, who is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Viacom (NYSE: VIA). Redstone is a powerful person in the corporate world, although you will see that his stock has not done so well since the summer of 2000. For Viacom, the bear market never ended.

On CNBC, he was musing about the fact that entertainment television is losing its fight for your time with the new computer games, which he said now consume the same average number of hours per week as TV. He then made the point he was going to do something to stop it; that he had directed his managers to go after the consumer game market.

Redstone wants to buy your eyeballs.

Until weblogs came along, society has not been able to stop the sell-side intrusions of people like Redstone. We have had to endure his/their endless commercials placed on Blockbuster videos, throughout the supposedly non-commercial airtime of his/their televised media content, and for the first twenty minutes viewing in any cinema today.

Our time is no longer ours; it is theirs. We cannot even watch the "news" on television without being subjected to their spin -- a la CBS Network New's interest in a certain political philosophy and agency in recent months.

Corporations pay for eyeballs; now they want to control those who casually spend their entertainment hours playing computer games " because it another opportunity for the sell-side to deliver their corporate message. But, isn't the point of a game that it is society's opportunity to escape the corporate world?

Bloggers can prevent this process of corporate intrusion. We can draw a line in the sand.

But first we bloggers have to understand something about accountability, and responsibility, to society.

BCara@BillCara.com