After three years in Ontario, California we announced last week that we will be moving the Podcast and New Media Expo in 2008 to Las Vegas- king of tradeshow cities. I’ve been considering it for nearly two years but wanted to make sure the event had solidified itself as the leader in this new space before we made the jump. The pros and cons of moving to Las Vegas are worthy of a separate post so I’ll address that later.

But this post is about something else I’ve discovered over the past week – the blogosphere is not what it claims to be. My gut has always told me this is so and deep down (another way to describe my intuition) I’ve known it for a long time but only this week have I really seen it in action. Friends and business associates I have discussed this with privately have all said, “This is news to you?” And yet very few bloggers and podcasters are talking about it publicly.

Here’s the issue: bloggers, “powncers” and “twittereres” are moderating their comments not just for spam and foul language, but for honest, legitimate posts that tend to disagree with their views. I knew our move to Las Vegas would not be welcomed by everyone. Most humans dislike change, like routine and it’s impossible to please everyone. As an event organizer you have to research and study what’s best for the majority of your attendees and exhibitors and then make a decision.

I knew our decision to move would be welcomed by most everyone – and it has. And for those bloggers, podcasters, and online publishers that disagreed with the move and posted on their blogs about it, I took comfort in knowing that I had dedicated the next several days to leaving explanations in the comments of any negative posts. I mean the New York Times in countless articles has told me many times to simply “join the conversation.” PR experts around the world talk about “joining the conversation.” After all, the blogosphere prides itself on allowing dissenting opinions to be heard and take part in the conversation right?

Wrong.

In the past four days, most of my comments where I have started by saying, “John Doe- thanks for your thoughts on our move. I understand why you may not like it but here’s why we made the decision so you can understand the background” have not shown up in the comments. I never attacked the commenter or even so much as said “you’re wrong.” I simply offered a more detailed explanation in the comments of their post so that I could offer an explanation of the move, an alternative view or in some cases correct blatant errors of fact (wrong dates of the event, etc).

6 of my 8 comments have yet to show up on these blogs or pownce conversations – blogs that talk about priding themselves on being “transparent” yet are anything but. When I’ve been able to find an email address for the blogger, I’ve sent an email with basically the same comments as my comment in their blog and additional information – not one response yet. It’s happened a few times in the past year but not until this week has it hit home for me that the blogosphere is not about “a conversation” if you want that conversation to happen in the comments. The only alternative is to post the responses on your own blog and link to the posts.

Bloggers have every right to moderate comments as they wish. But the “transparency” of the blogosphere seems pretty opaque to me right now.