I've been fascinated by this long series Jeff Matthews is doing based on his observations of the Berkshire annual meeting. I have no view into what kind of hedge manager Matthews is, but he's a good writer. What I find interesting in this series is that in many ways Matthews is pursuing a sort of long form journalism in his blog, combining personal observations, color commentary and general reflections about the philosophy of investing. I've been eagerly awaiting each new section because it represents both an unfolding of an event (the conference) and an evolution of perception -- starting with BH is nearly godlike to the point today where the reader (or at least this one) starts to wonder if the emperor has clothes.
When I talk about the changing influence model, one of the points I often make is that the routine is no longer routine -- that an event for customers and the press can be more influenced in the long term by a customer who blogs about it than by either the journalists in the room or the people who attend the event. The persistence of blogs makes that so. Here, weeks and weeks after the BH conference, when I've forgotten totally what Bloomberg or the WSJ or the NYT wrote about the event, I'm still reading about it.