Less filling, tastes great
Nick Carr observes
Back in October 2004, there were three blogs in the Technorati top 10. Last year, there was one. Today, there are zero. Defining the short head more broadly, as the top 100 sites, provides an even starker picture of the rapid downtailing of blogs. Today, only 12 blogs show up in the top 100, down from 18 in February of this year - a drop of 33% in just a few months. There are now fewer blogs in the top 100 than there were in the top 35 in October 2004. It’s worth remembering that the last two years have been a time of remarkable growth and even more remarkable publicity for blogs – almost certainly the peak on both counts. Yet, still, blogs’ share of the top media sites – the sites that set the public agenda - has been shrinking rapidly. Even as the blogosphere has exploded in size, its prominence in online media has been waning.
Well this doesn't seem surprising. For the most part bloggers comment on news rather than do original reporting on it. As push button publishng allows more and more people to join the blahgosphere it seems logical to think that these new bloggers would reflect their own mainstream media consumption habits. For instance the Sunday NY Times publishes hundred of articles in a single day giving a high volume opportunity to commenting. The rise of sites like Digg also add to the advantage that larger media outlets have in being linked to.
