According to Slate, it's the beginning of the end for blogs. Based the Sports Illustrated cover story theory - which implies that any person or team touted on the cover is doomed to fail - Slate's Daniel Gross concludes the fun and games are over within the blogosphere as established conglomerates claim a stake through acquisitions and/or investments while the rest of us scramble for B, C or Z-lister status. The impetus behind Gross' article is a recent cover story in New York magazine about the "haves and have-nots of the blogging boom". Frankly, Gross and, for that matter, Nicholas Carr are missing a key point about the the blogosphere. Sure, there's some money to be made from banner ads and AdSense, and there's certainly no lack of new voices emerging (some of them interesting, some of them just noise), but the real power of the blogosphere is the impact it is having on established industries which have seen a new mainstream communications medium quickly emerge. This is why the blogosphere really matters - not as a business dominated by acquisitions, venture capital and advertising - but a medium that inspires and compels change. Perhaps I'm totally biased given I've got the blog tatoo and membership card but it's happening and the sooner people realize it, the sooner they can position themselves to take advantage of the blogosphere.
Update: I like Blackfriars take on the blogosphere:
"So is blogging topping out? I don't think so, but the blogging bubble may be. But 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 Wall Street thinks it is or not".
Tris Hussey pipes in that "Blogs are moving from the tech niche to the cocktail party set." That's good 'cause now I can stop talking about Nortel. :)

With Telus Corp. posting its Q4 results today, wireless subscriber growth in 2005 saw 1.8 million net additions, the highest growth since 2001. The penetration rate climbed to 5.1% to 52%. "Fears of a slowdown are premature and unfounded based on the results of the past year," said Telus CFO Bob MacFarlane. While the industry may be patting itself on the back, market penetration lags behind the U.S. and, of course, Europe where markets are nearly saturated. The growth of Canada's wireless market may be held back by the carriers' focus on "profitable growth", which means none of them - Telus, Bell, Rogers - are willing to get into a price war to attract customers. This is good news for the investment community, which loves higher ARPU and low churn, but not the best market for consumers. Still, there is plenty of room left for growth, particularly in younger demographic that regard wireless as key part of their lifestyle.

For the past four years, the CRTC (Canada's telecom regulator) has been collecting money from carriers using a complicated formula involving local service prices. Any money deemed to be over the established price has gone into a so-called deferral account. One of the problems was no one - not even the carriers - knew what this money was slated to do or how much was in the account. The CRTC finally made a unorthordox decision yesterday that most of the $652.7-million has to be used by Bell Canada and Telus to build broadband networks in rural communities. In theory, I guess this seems reasonable but it casts the spotlight on the role of the regulator. Should the CRTC be the one deciding how and where private companies spend their money. If servicing a small community on Northern Ontario makes little economic sense, why spend money on service where it could take decades to get a return on investment? If the CRTC and the federal government are so concerned about providing rural Canadians with broadband access, maybe they should be the ones making the investment as a way to show people in remote communities that their tax dollars are hard at work for them. Another strange part of the CRTC's decision yesterday is a $1 reduction in local service prices that goes into effect June 1. Why make this change now if local phone service rules are loosened next month when the CRTC makes its decision on how the $10-billion market will regulated? For critics of the CRTC, this decision will likely give them more ammunition to call for a structural overhaul.