A couple of years ago I commented that the Web was little more than a glorified library, with many of the same benefits and disadvantages.

Since then, though, I've changed my mind. Arguably the Web's most important feature is now its promotion of free speech - many people can post information on the Web and have it read by almost anyone else with a computer.

This is hardly a staggering observation; people have been promoting the Web as a free speech medium for many years. But I think it's only in the last year or so that it has truly begun to fulfil that claim.

Until recently, publishing anything on the Web meant that you needed some form of HTML publishing software, however basic, on your local computer. Usually you needed a bank account and credit card, too. These are not major barriers to entry for affluent Westerners, but in areas of the world where Internet-connected computers are rare and quite old, they pose significant problems.

Some of those problems are now being resolved. It's now possible to publish your thoughts and opinions relatively quickly and easily, with no specialist software other than a Web browser, using blog hosts ("blog" is an abbreviation of "weblog").

Such solutions were available before in various guises, but the blogging phenomenon has seen sites spring up by the million, literally, over the past 12 months. While many are still vanity opinion pieces by the bored and the boring, many more are insightful, thought-provoking commentaries on world events, sometimes by people in the firing line.

As international news sources become ever more politicised and stylised, the Web could finally be coming of age in its delivery of local information to a global audience. Repressive governments can and do prevent their citizens from accessing or generating such material, though, so it'll be some time yet before the 'World' in 'World Wide Web' encompasses all of the world's inhabitants. At least steps are being made in the right direction.

You can make use of this development. The next time you're in the pub, about to repeat an opinion seen on television, heard on radio or read in a newspaper as though it were absolute fact, stop. Go home, search the Web for a blog on that particular topic and see what comes up. You just might get a different perspective.