I know I just did a post on this but I’ve had enough people emailing me links to this AP story that I thought I’d post it again. I think that since it’s starting to show up in numerous websites more people are finding it. Like on CNN.

My main takeaway from this story is still the fact that farmers are going online to find the information they need and can’t get anywhere else. Several things are at play here. To start with, farmers want information now as in right now while they have the need. They don’t want to wait and hope it shows up sometime in the future. Next up is the fact that the internet allows them freedom of choice, their choice. They choose what they want and when they want it. Finally, and this is the hard part for traditional communicators to accept it seems to me, they are getting their information from other farmers and people like yours truly who have adopted and promoted the use of self publishing platforms like blogs and podcasts.

Now, this story focuses on online farmer user forums and doesn’t say anything about blogs and podcasts. I don’t know why but I hope you’ll understand that the more choices there are for farmers to get the information they want, when they want it, the more fractionalized the audience will become. I like to call it the online conversation and I want to be a part of it. I have no grandiose idea that I’ll capture all of it and that’s just fine by me. However, I think I do have a loyal audience and they are people who find useful and interesting things here that they will pass along (word of mouth) to their peers. That’s what this is all about.