Why has the blogosphere been so wildly successful in the last four years?

1. Blogs cater to a more educated demographic that most mainstream media seems to avoid completely.

2. It is a well known "secret" in the publishing industry that a good book is really just one stellar chapter with ten chapters of filler. A blog entry is written at the ideal length to communicate the idea at hand. Try visiting the blog of your favorite author. A few entries will most likely communicate the message of a complete hardback. Like this free manifesto of Seth Godin's The Dip. It conveys his entire book in ten pages.

3. Blogs are far more precisely marketed to their particular niche. This "Long Tail" lets people read about their specific passion, (like Kite boarding) and enhances reader loyalty.

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. "

- William Strunk

My roommate paid me thirty dollars to write a sixteen sentence review on business week magazine. (sleeplessness can be a powerful motivator)

While writing I discovered a few interesting things

1. Internet ads of keywords within articles, hyperlinked to advertisers websites, enjoy a 3-10% average click rate. Banner ads get a dismal .2%.

2. Azureus began using encryption in its code last year, to disguise its file sharing content. This technology could make it impossible for any movie studio or law enforcement agency to know what's moving over the internet. This could make file sharers impervious to lawsuits.

3. With the stated corporate tax at 35% of income, fortune 500 companies paid an average of only 26% in taxes. The top three paid 0.0%, 0.3%, and 0.7%. (Things don't seem to look so bad for your future business)