Technorati has issued its latest State of the Blogosphere, and there are no signs this blogging thing is losing any steam. According to data collected, 80K new blogs are created every day - or one per second - which means the blogosphere will apparently double within 5.5 months. Of the 14.2 million blogs Technorati now tracks, 55% are active while 13% are updated at least weekly. I'd be interested in knowing the life span of many of the 80K blogs created each day. In other words, how many go dead within a week or a month or two months? And of the 14.2 million blogs now tracked by Technorati, how many are "active"? And how does Technorati define "active"? How many are updated only once a month or once every few months? 14.2 million is a big number but it may not be as big as advertised when you start to dig deeper.
More interesting is Technorati's discovery that MSN Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal and AOL Journals are among the hosted services growing quickly, while WordPress and Movable Type are also enjoying huge popularity. An interesting trend is the growth of the blogging eco-system as complementary services emerge. Technorati cites WordPress-based hosting services such as Laughing Squid (love the name!), Dreamhost and Blue Host. When it comes down to where the money will be made in blogging, it will probably happen in the eco-system where companies will offer value-added services (hosting, plug-ins, content management, etc.). Check out my recent story in the National Post about blog-nomics.