The future of blogging

Frank Barnako, over at Market Watch last week talked about his friend Herb Greenberg, a fellow runner and blogger, who said, "There are simply too many blogs. There is going to be a huge shakeout."

Frank suggests that while a shakeout in business often means lost jobs, in blogs, it just means less to read. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

We'll know more about blogs next week, when Technorati publishes its quarterly review of the 'sphere. I suspect we'll see some shakeout in terms of bloggers who have begun posting less frequently.

Frank suggests that the novelty of blogging must be wearing off, if not for the writers, then for the readers.

Well I disagree.

There will be churn. There is a limit to the total number which will be limited by population/broadband penetration of the internet.

Mostly there will be new widgets (video on my blog - woweeee!), there will be more excitement in new areas of blogging - politics this week, economics next.

Most of all will be the realisation by organisations that they need digital footprint.

The loss of competitive edge for today's sales and long term sales growth will be tied to the number of comments and hyperlinks that add to the on-line property.

Its an asset, stupid!

It delivers people to your online store who will buy your fastest and slowest moving stock on-line and at minimal cost.

Companies need web pages that link to their site - economic fact.
Blogs are good at creating loads of such pages - Internet fact.

Shakeout, maybe, diminution? only if the facts of economic life pass organisations by.