Blogs: It's All About the Benjamins?

By Joanna Miller in Miscellaneous on Feb 22, 2006 6:52PM

Omigod, did you hear? Blogs are so over. They’re, like, as dunzo as gaucho pants and kinkajous – so 2005.

That’s what nearly every major news source has been saying for the past week, and the Tribune is the latest to jump on the bandwagon. The proof? For one, a Gallup poll that reports 9 percent of Internet users say they frequently read blogs, 11 percent read them occasionally, 13 percent rarely read them, and 66 percent say they never read blogs. Little growth in readership in the past year spells doom for the blogosphere, or so the argument goes.

Strangely enough, a report sponsored by online media companies Six Apart and Gawker Media last year included similar findings but presented them in a much different way, saying “nearly 50 million Americans, or about 30 percent of the total U.S. Internet population, visited blogs in [the first quarter of] 2005.” Hmm, that doesn’t sound so bad.

What’s unclear is how the participants of the studies define blogs. Are they thinking of their best friend’s ramblings on plucking vs. waxing and how Marissa Cooper has become such a drag when they talk about blogs? Or are they including more organized, community-minded sites, like, say, yours truly, in their remarks?

The real issue of this study isn’t really readership – it’s money. And isn’t it always? With 20 million blogs worldwide and counting, limited readership and latecomer corporations grasping for any remaining profits to be had, the Trib asks, “is too much money chasing not enough revenue?” But really, who cares? If greedy corporations fall on their faces trying to make a quick buck on blogs, are we supposed to cry for them?

Is that what the blogosphere is really all about? We’d bet our Chicagoist paycheck that most bloggers aren’t expecting their online efforts to make them rich. Hoping maybe, but that’s about it. A blogger can dream, right?