Blogs are not an engine of mainstream doom

Blogs may not wipe out mainstream media after all, according to a story in the Ideas section of the Sunday Star [here].

Yet despite the proliferation and popularity of blogs, the obliteration of mainstream media as we know it is just not happening. Rather than resembling a steamroller, blogs are looking like the cheese on the bread that is mainstream media; or if you prefer, the icing on the cake.

There's no question blogs have posted intimidating numbers recently. David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, a blog search engine, released figures in February that showed bloggers were generating 50,000 new Internet posts every hour. He also found that more than 75,000 new blogs were being created every day — almost one blog per second (think about this next time you have a "unique" idea for the World's Greatest Blog).

But links are the lifeblood of blogs, so Sifry also looked at what other sites those bloggers were most commonly linking to.At the top of the list was The New York Times. Second was CNN. Third was The Washington Post.

The first blog to register on the list was the influential technology site BoingBoing.net. It came in 12th, and was linked to less than half as much as any one of the big three.

The next blog, Engadget.com, was in 19th position. In other words, blogs are not stealing readers away from mainstream outlets as much as they are driving traffic straight to them.