An interesting discussion on Radio 4’s Today programme as tonight sees the Oxford Literary Festival debate the value of literary bloggers compared to more conventional critics.Mark Thwaite, writer of the literary blog ReadySteadyBook.com and John Mullan, Professor of English, University College London will be debating whose judgement is more trustworthy when it comes to books – and do amateur bloggers online do a better job than established literary critics in the traditional press.  They will be joined by Lynne Hatwell, founder of dovegreyreader.typepad.com and Sunday Times chief reviewer John Carey.

On the programme, Thwaite stated that he preferred the online space because of the interactivity with his readers where both sides, through conversations, are learning from each other.  He also believes that the blogosphere is a ‘wild and noisy place’ and that within this ‘biggness and chaos’ there is a valuable place for judicial and analytical guides.  Mullan’s point was that with over 112 million blogs out there, there is more than ever a need for professional guides to do this job, providing opinion that he argues would be a little more authoratitive, analytical and comparative by nature.  This will be an interesting debate so get on down there tonight if you can, tickets are still on sale.

What’s your opinion on this?  And how do you feel that this impacts on traditional ‘impact’ measures employed by many PR measurement companies?  Are they relevant in the social media world? And surely this is as good an argument as any against the use of one size fits all scoring systems that so many PR measurement agencies depend on.  Now more than ever it is time to look to measurement systems that are tailored, relevant and flexible and measure engagement and conversations rather than providing meaningless numbers.