Agreed. Boardingarea did a great job of staking out virgin ground for loyalty program blogs. They have a large advantage now. Yet the incumbency advantage of a blog site is less than that of a discussion forum. The discussion forum builds member involvement and, dare I say it, loyalty. Participants begin to feel ownership, and that feeling is valid.

With blogs we are mostly just readers, not writers. We are always willing to give a new one a try, and bookmark it if it's good. If the new blog is clearly superior, we will stop reading the old blog. We don't have to wait for other readers to copy our decision. One lone writer is all it takes to prompt our move.