Egads, and here I thought The Moderate Voice was so distinctive: it turns out that there are 8 million people publishing blogs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Do all of you want to exchange links?
Yes, blogging is becoming so commonplace it’s almost in danger of becoming uncool — except, the Journal tells us, it’s a big boon for business:
The blog as business tool has arrived.
Some eight million Americans now publish blogs and 32 million people read them, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. What began as a form of public diary-keeping has become an important supplement to a business’s online strategy: Blogs can connect with consumers on a personal level — and keep them visiting a company’s Web site regularly.
Yes, and now you can buy Blogads on this site(h-i-n-t). More:
While any size company can use such a strategy, small businesses may benefit most: Blogs offer little-known small businesses name recognition, and the chance to boost traffic well beyond what they’d get if they were simply offering goods and services for sale.
“It’s a new way of communicating, rather than marketing,” says Charlene Lee, an analyst at Forrester Research. Like other forms of publishing, blogs attract the largest audiences when they avoid overt commercialism and deliver compelling and credible content, Ms. Lee says.
In a similar vein, blogs with character are seen as more effective than some more traditional online-marketing strategies, such as static, brochurelike Web sites and electronic newsletters that may get blocked by spam filters.
WE have character (note our story on products made of cow dung). And this:
Starting a blog can reap big increases in Web site visitors within months, thanks largely to search engines’ enthusiasm for the medium. Quality blogs tend to rise higher on search-results pages because other Web sites link to them. Engines like Google consider those links virtual popularity votes and use them to help determine display order.
The bottom line is: the new technology is available to anyone, although it helps if you have a desire, a bit of energy, and something to say. And as their popularity grows, businesses increasingly have success stories about advertising on blogs. Which will generate more blogs. And more ads. Or so it would seem…
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.