Frankly, I’m not sure this is worth posting, as the observations about blogging are rather 2002, but it’s in the Economist, so, there you go.

Economist.com: Weblogging, The Trees Fight Back

Okay, okay, we get it, Microsoft loves blogs. Yet another advice piece from them for small businesses for blogs.

So, where is Bill’s blog, anyway?

Microsoft Business Solutions: The Four-Letter Word That Can Get People Excited About Your Products

The Seattle Times is looking for a 20-something political blogger.

Are you interested in this year’s elections? Know your community? Like to talk politics with your friends, colleagues and neighbors? Want an opportunity to blog about your observations?
Apply to join a grass-roots campaign coverage effort by The Seattle Times. We want fresh thoughts and perspectives about the elections from places and people not often found in newspapers — your neighbors, your favorite cafes and other local hangouts.
We’re looking for contributors under age 30 who are following the ’04 campaigns ‚Äî national, regional and local. Each participant will be given a blog on seattletimes.com and periodically appear in The Seattle Times.

And so on.

Seattle Times: Election 2004 Backyard Blog Project

It’s a long story. The Search Engine Guild sponsored a Search Engine Optimization Challenge to see who could achieve top ranking on Google for the peculiar phrase “Nigritude Ultramarine.” Popular blogger (and director of business development at blog software company Six Apart) Anil Dash decided to enter the contest, making a blatant appeal to his thousands of daily readers to link to his entry, hyperlinking on the term “nigritude ultramarine.” It worked: he won. See for yourself: search ‘nigritude ultramarine’ on Google.

Another good example of the power of blogs.

UPDATE:
Tig Tillinghast of MarketingVox had a better write-up than mine, so I figured I’d just rip it off to clarify more of the story (I tipped him off to the story, anyway, so I feel like I’m within my rights):

A contest held to see who could garner the best search engine rankings for a made up phrase (“nigritude ultramarine”) was taken by well-known blogger Anil Dash. His strategy seems to have consisted of appealing to his many readers to link to his page “in order to prove that real content trumps all the shady optimization tricks that someone can figure out, and because I figure I deserve an iPod at least as much as the Star Wars Kid.”
The contestant with the highest ranking site over a three-day period wins the “Stayer” prize, considered the more prestigious of the two prizes given out. The initial award went to Brandon Suit, an online community administrator.

UPDATE: I’m now linking (in the headline above) to the original source of this data, Dave Sifry’s own blog, the guy behind Technorati. He notes, “We’re currently seeing anywhere from 8,000-17,000 new weblogs created every single day.” Thanks to Olivier Travers for pointing me to this link.

ORIGINAL POST: Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine notes that Technorati has just passed 3 million blogs tracked. I don’t know where he got that graphic; I’d link to it directly on Technorati if I could find it, but anyway, Jeff’s a nice guy, so I’m happy to link to him. Note, this doesn’t mean that 3 million is all the blogs there are, but that’s how many Technorati tracks. It’s certainly one good measure, anyway.

Sifry.com: Technorati tracks 3 million blogs

Jill Fallon

Having a good niche is the secret the success of many businesses, and blogs are a great way to market to that niche. Jill Fallon has embodied that with her business Estate Vaults and its companion blogs, Legacy Matters and The Business of Life. I’m not entirely clear what the difference is between the two blogs (in general, I’m not a fan of multiple blogs for a single business author, but maybe there’s some good reason for it), but her “About the Author” page clearly describes the business proposition:

When she was essentially widowed for the second time, Jill Fallon was inspired to create EstateVaults‚Ñ¢ to help people take care of the business of their lives more easily and securely and at the same time keep their affairs in order for their families.
She believes that boomers – her target users of EstateVaults™ Рare the bridge between their non-digital parents and their totally digital children and grand-children. Boomers are at the time of life when questions about mortality loom larger even as life gets sweeter. With the proliferation of tools, they can create digital personal and family legacy archives to connect generations past, present and future, if only they get their act together.

Link

The question keeps getting asked. Nothing in this answer strikes me as particularly insightful, but I’m glad to see the issue is getting fleshed out more in the popular and industry press. This article is part of IW’s SmartAdvice series from consulting firm The Advisory Council, which, I can’t help but to observe, does not appear to have a blog of its own.

Thanks to Olivier Travers for the link.

InformationWeek: Are Blogs The Next Internet Marketing Phenomenon?

B.L. Ochman writes about this new project:

It’s 28 people who blog about PR all getting together next week to blog about making blogs part of the marketing mix. Being PR people, they’ve turned it into a big academic thing for the most part. I am sticking to practical stuff, examples only, no theory, as is my wont.
:>)

The New PR Wiki is an accompanying wiki.

Link

Lefty documentary maker, director most recently of the super popular and controversial Fahrenheit 9/11, now blogs. His first entry was made, ironically enough, on July 4.

Link