I’ve been a blogger since 2003 and so have used blogs for years as an information bridge between old and new media for searches. What seemed to make perfect sense to me back in 2003, apparently has finally become fully embraced by mainstream media, according to eMarketer senior analyst, Paul Verna.
In his story, Blogging Becomes Mainstream, Paul Verna writes that “blogging has become so pervasive and influential that the lines between blogging and the mainstream media have disappeared,” noting a Technorati-sponsored State of the Blogosphere 2008 survey conducted in July and August 2008 by Decipher. The survey’s comScore Media Metrix blog numbers come in at 77 million unique visitors in the US in August 2008, compared with 75.1 million unique visitors to MySpace and 41 million to Facebook. In July 2008, comScore ranked two blogs — OMG and TMZ — as numbers 1 and 2 in their list of the top 10 entertainment sites.
In an interview with eMarketer, Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati said, ‘Blogs are now mainstream media. We’ve certainly seen that with the number of professional, semiprofessional and passion/enthusiast bloggers who are creating real media experiences. At the same time, you’re also seeing mainstream media come the other direction to add blog content.’
These days, looking at the sites of mainstream media heavyweights such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, you readily see the truth of Jalichandra’s words. Both sites have digitally exploded with in-house blogs [NYT: 63; WaPo: 85] that cover huge readership segments in news, lifestyle and opinion with brand extension to outside blog content via blog rolls and featured blog posts. Mainstream media’s first tentative steps into blogging just a few short years ago have become a stampede — paying dividends in more content variety for readers and higher traffic stats for the company bottom line.
