50 Million Blogs - Do You Have One Yet?

I don't want to be seen as a shill for Wired Magazine, but it is the only mag I still receive at home. I read it cover-to-cover as soon as I get it. Nowhere else do I find so much new and useful. This month's issue contains an amazing cover story on how much things have changed in just 10 years because of the Web. You can read the whole story online, but here are just two paragraphs that explain, once again, why every Promotional Products Professional should have a blog.

What a shock, then, to witness the near-instantaneous rise of 50 million blogs, with a new one appearing every two seconds. There - another new blog! One more person doing what AOL and ABC - and almost everyone else - expected only AOL and ABC to be doing. These user-created channels make no sense economically. Where are the time, energy, and resources coming from?

The audience.

I run a blog about cool tools. I write it for my own delight and for the benefit of friends. The Web extends my passion to a far wider group for no extra cost or effort. In this way, my site is part of a vast and growing gift economy, a visible underground of valuable creations - text, music, film, software, tools, and services - all given away for free. This gift economy fuels an abundance of choices. It spurs the grateful to reciprocate. It permits easy modification and reuse, and thus promotes consumers into producers.


For more information on how to set up your own blog, see the earlier articles here, here, and here.