The Blogometer looks at 2005 from the standpoint of Blogtopia:
If 2004 was the year that blogs broke into the mainstream, 2005 saw an acceleration of this trend — even without a presidential election to focus on. Unlike 12 months ago, the word “blog” itself is almost a household name. Those annoying wire stories that reiterate the fact that “blog is short for web-log” are definitely on the way out….
As a community, blog participation appears to be growing at an exponential pace. Professional ventures continue to join the trailblazing amateurs, and some of those amateurs — the elite bloggers you are most likely to see quoted in the Blogometer — are seeing their influence grow along with it.
Read the rest of the analysis, complete with specifics about blogs, issues and some bloggers.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.