Validation for Blogs

As reported in MarketWatch, Dave Sifry's Technorati.com reported Tuesday it is now tracking slightly more than 8 million blogs.

The article cites Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley who calls blogs "a huge business opportunity."

It also cites a research study from Outsell, Inc., which although referring to blogs as "a horrible name and are virtually unknown" also concedes that "they are going to be big" and will inevitably lead to a tipping point in the information industry.

Some other highlights from the piece:

• There's even a new word to describe the fuel of such self-promotional publishing: blego. "A combination of the nouns blog and ego"
• "Blogs have become the 'on-steroids' Internet version of enthusiast magazines, fan clubs, and birds-of-a-feather groups"
• "The result is a living, always-on example of the potential wisdom of crowds. Blogs offer full transparency and instant dialogue on authenticity and accuracy."

The business implications and benefits are two-fold:

1) Consumer: "You're betting with house money and can only lose by not playing."

2) Publishing: ...paid subscription blogs are not far away

We shall see...