The NYT editorialises on the extraordinary growth of the ’sphere:
Nearly 80,000 new blogs are created every day, and there are some 14.2 million in existence already, 55 percent of which remain active. Some 900,000 new blog postings are added every day - a steady increase marked by extraordinary spikes in new postings after incidents like the London bombing. The blogosphere - that is, the virtual realm of blogdom as a whole - doubles in size every five and a half months.
Begs the question of who’s reading all this stuff, doesn’t it, Doc.
And if you follow the Bahnisch Rule of Commenting (most of it is done while skiving off at work or procrastinating at study), then the effect of all this on global productivity must be staggering - blogging causes the next recession, anyone?
(I tried it myself from home a few minutes ago, Mark, and it still hung up - see how I go this time)
Working now, anyway, champ.
So the paramount question is, if I may be so bold to put; will the blogsphere in relation to our ‘interactive’ news make serious dents in, or overhaul and make redundant the MSM, given that the latter will condense into a smaller number of bordellos pandering to the political/military/industrial conglomerates?
On quantity of blogs alone there is hope, the takeup of internet in the home and utilisation among the demographic groups are other factors naturally.
strange immediacy
reifying the ephemeral
Two blog titles up for grabs in the next couple of seconds.
(re commenting problem:10th time lucky?)
I bags “reifying the ephemeral”.
I’d like to know how many of the 900,000 are automated, SEO-related keyword posts and how many are genuine entries by people.
14 million, and doubling in size every six months is one hell of a growth rate. By my bad sums, at this rate the ’sphere will be about as populous as the US in two years, and stalking China in about three. Unlikely, I suppose, but one hell of a craze.
We’ll need a one child policy?
The other side of the coin is the slow but steady decline in the readership/audience of mainstream media (other than radio). Even as the population increases, the major newspapers are losing circulation, and even television is losing viewers to broadband Internet.
I look forward to the coming monetary bankruptcy of the New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald — a fitting match to their existing moral bankruptcy.
EP, if The Australian and the Daily Tele go down the chute with SMH and the NYT I think the trade-off would be just about worth it.
Otherwise, I reckon spam messages and trackbacks probably make up a not insignificant percentage of all traffic and total hits received on blogs.