- Reading the above headline, the question comes up if it is the twilight of the blogs or rather whether it is actually the dawn. Read on for the answer and no it is way beyond the Clinton vs. Obama battle in the U.S.
And no, the answer is not that easy but here is a beginning for finding the answer to the title of this post.
Recently I came across a story entitled: 2008-02-18 – Financial Times – As polls loom, Iran takes its battles into the blogosphere. The article [in the printed media of course 
] had some interesting tidbits, such as:
There are now about 800,000 blogs in Iran, making it second only to China in the ranks of top blogging countries….
The article also mentioned Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad who is a blogger himself:
“As a matter of fact, I have spent more than the allocated time on the blog,” he wrote recently at www.ahmadinejad.ir – his blog (he allocated 15 min per month, not much to manage one’s blog…. what you think?)
Surely, the blogosphere also provides a forum for voices that cannot be heard elsewhere in the state-controlled media. Unfortunately, blogger pressure may become too great resulting in the incarceration of the blogger as this Saudi example shows:
bloggers can have too much influence – Saudi jails Fouad al-Farhan
But the above illustrates that blogs are becoming an ever more popular way for communicating one’s opinions, ideas and products to the world. In fact, to as many people as the Internet may allow one to reach.
Visiting Afrigator the social media aggregator, you discover that each single day an astonishing number of new blogs join. Hence, in Africa, blogging is becoming an ever more common thing.
In Iran with 15m internet connections in a country of 70m, 800,000 people blog. Moreover, what does this mean for Africa? With an ever greater penetration of Internet access (e.g., at public libraries or via one’s mobile), will the number of blogs being registered at Afrigator explode within the next 4 to 6 months?
As well, if soccer club’s presidents and coaches write blogs that are increasingly popular by fans for getting content about ‘their’ clubs, where will it end?
Imagine every football club playing in the English Premier League, Deutsche Bundesliga, and Spanish Primera División featuring a blog written by the club’s chairperson or president? How popular will these blogs be and whose blog will top them all?
UEFA Team Ranking 2007 – but the question is who leads the ComMetrics Team Ranking 2008
So stay tuned, we will benchmark them soon right here with our tools, such as:
the top blogging presidents
the top blogging team
the top blogging information security experts
and so on. It is not just about winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. (Obama against Clinton) and becoming president it is also about winning the social media contest as a politician, soccer coach or CEO. We bring you the results right here, stay tuned or better – subscribe by giving us an e-mail address (upper right on our web site).
bottom line
So is blogging topping out? I do not think so. Moreover, while the blogging bubble may be in countries such as the U.S., neither in Africa nor Europe this is the case. In fact, there are a billion Internet users out there looking for content online.
That makes the market for creative content bigger every day. Any market with a billion customers is an interesting business, whether investors think it is or not.
Therefore, the real question is not whether this is the twilight of the blogs, but rather whether it is actually the dawn.
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Also of interest:
– why women buy black high heels – the girl’s guide
– 1 sensible metrics – how to measure success of a blog – the basics
– 2 sensible metrics – a framework for measuring blog success
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Why not leave a comment below, tell us what you think inquiring minds want to know!
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