Every year for the past couple of years, David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, releases a “State of the Blogosphere” report. See Part I and Part II.

According to the Daily Posting Volume chart, Technorati tracks 1.2 million posts per day, about 50,000 per hour.

Technorati currently tracks 26.6 million blogs, and the blogosphere has been doubling in size every five months. Mainstream media web sites still lead blogs in incoming links, but I suspect those numbers will begin to shift in the coming years as more bloggers do original reporting.

Sifry’s report has gotten coverage in the mainstream media, including the Sun-Sentinel and New York Times:

If the blogosphere continues to expand at this rate, every person who has Internet access will be a blogger before long, if not an actual reader of blogs. The conventional media - this very newspaper, for instance - have often discussed the growing impact of blogging on the coverage of news. Perhaps the strongest indicator of the importance of blogdom isn’t those discussions themselves, but the extent to which media outlets are creating blogs - or bloglike manifestations - of their own.

…

It’s natural enough to think of the growth of the blogosphere as a merely technical phenomenon. But it’s also a profoundly human phenomenon, a way of expanding and, in some sense, reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in.

Related — Technorati: How (and Why) to Claim Your Blog

One can never be too specialized. BusinessBlogWire is a blog that covers corporate blog news. Excellent idea.

(Via Micro Persuasion)

I’m wary of any government attempts to regulate the blogosphere. So what’s wrong with corporate marketing departments creating blogs solely to sell products? Isn’t that what business blogging is designed to do?

An advocacy group called Commerial Alert has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate “buzz” marketers (PDF copy of letter).

Maybe something’s wrong with my comprehension skills, but I don’t get it.

(Hat tip: The Raw Feed)

ABC News’s blog, The Note, tried to be cute by posting a 30-year-old Jimmy Carter speech as an advanced copy of one of President Bush’s, and some readers didn’t think it was funny. By the way, I hate to be the one to break it to ABC, but that is not a blog. Anyway, back to the story:

Printing what is known as Carter’s “malaise” speech was intended to show a comparison to President Bush’s new conservation effort. But not all were in on the joke, and, ultimately, it served as a cautionary tale for news organizations as they increasingly try to penetrate the blogosphere and its culture.

“I appreciate the point The Note was trying to make,” wrote blogger John Aravosis on Americablog.com. “But a serious news source like ABC News doesn’t make that point by publishing 30-year-old speeches and claiming that they’re an advance copy of today’s address by the President. That’s not satire. That’s just stupid.” (Source)

Stupid, indeed. You have to be really clever to do good satire, which is why I rarely try. One advantage personal bloggers have over professionals (including news organizations) is that we can afford to be stupid and make readers angry every now and then; they can’t.

Several months ago a guy named Jose Avila made furniture for his new apartment with FedEx boxes. He started a site called FedexFurniture.com and blogged about his experience. Instead of giving Avila publicity and using this to their advantage, FedEx sent him a cease and desist order and threatened to sue for copyright infringement.

Well, Avila’s made national news and FedEx looks like an uninformed, behind-the-times loser totally ignorant of the power of online marketing, especially through blogs. They could’ve handled the situation so many different ways. For example, if they’d made Avila (who had nothing but good things to say about the company) an unofficial spokesperson, they would’ve gotten a lot of PR mileage out of it. But the first thing they thought of was suing one of their biggest fans.

Truly clueless.

Blogging is so popular and prevalent, search engine Google created a specialized search engine just for blogs.

(Source)

Blogger Aaron Wall of SEOBook is being sued by company called Traffic Power for defamation and disclosing trade secrets. From The Blog Herald:

If successful the case has the potential to cause major upheaval in the blogosphere as comments would need to be filtered in cases where there was even the slightest chance someone might sue or find the comment offensive or disagree with it.

Might be time to update the disclosure and editorial statement.

Related: As blogging grows, companies eye legal pitfalls

Is it riskier to moderate blog comments?

An online retailer called Bluefly created a blog called Flypaper (with comments!). Hmm…sticky name. From USA Today:

The blog “encourages them to visit often to check postings on styles, designers and fashion faux pas,” says Melissa Payner-Gregor, CEO of Bluefly.com. The company’s fashion spotters around the country post items on Flypaper, which launched in April.

Flypaper’s customers typically have relied for fashion news on magazines such as Vogue. Now, they also have the blog as an information source, and the company has an opportunity for an interactive relationship.

It is potentially a lucrative one. A recent study by online market research firm ComScore Networks found that shoppers who visit blogs spend about 6% more than the average online shopper. (Emphasis added)(Source)

The rest of the article is informative, but the highlighted portion is the money quote. If people keep coming back (Does the reason matter?), you’re doing something right.

During the recent terrorist attacks in London, they were.