Jeremy Ensight has been getting a lot of questions about the future of blogging, especially from journalists, who seem to want to believe that this whole publishing trend is just a fad. Sorry, did you say fad? As in pogs, pokemon, and Lance Armstrong bracelets?
Well, instead of giving the usual “I dunno” answer he took some time to day to set them straight and give some numbers as to why he thinks blogs are more than just a passing craze.
“Blogging has now established itself as a mainstream communications medium. Roughly 50 million bloggers. More than 200 million blog readers. That’s more users than Linux, more than Apple, more than the iPod, more than most major religions, more than the number of day traders, firemen, lawyers and doctors.
Anyone who wants to say blogging is only for a “select few†is looking through a very different kind of glasses. And those glasses probably don’t allow them to see blogging in relationship to their favourite little pet project – be it open source software like Firefox and Linux or cool services like Skype and Vonage.
The numbers behind blogging are huge. I don’t say this to navel gaze, but just to say that from my perspective it’s mainstream. When I can be in a taxicab in San Francisco and ask the driver if he knows about blogs, and get a knowing nod…
Yes, blogs are mainstream.”