Technorati published this chart showing the explosion of blogging.

GoogleBlogoscoped have provided an astute analysis of the same chart.

Stuntdubl lists his five deadly sins of blogging:

• 5. Stealing other people’s ideas (without links)
• 4. Not having an about page
• 3. Not having a subscribe button
• 2. Not having a best posts page
• 1. Being a Wanker

I think I’ve broken every single one of those, and will, no doubt, continue to do so. Sorry.

Blogging, as anyone who has tried it knows, is hard work. “It shows!”, I hear people say. That doesn’t mean people should read them on that basis, of course. People should only read them because they find they interesting, useful, annoying, or they have nothing better to do.

The thing I like most about blogs is the pulse of information surrounding blogs. Once you aggregate blogs in a feed reader, you can quickly see the topics that the search industry considers important enough to remark upon on that day, because a lot of people will be repeating it, and, hopefully, expanding upon it. Following the threads between blogs can be enlightening.

That’s pretty powerful, and I’d really miss it if it wasn’t there. I have missed it when I’ve been away from my computer for a few days. The industry changes so quickly, and the blogs help find, and broadcast, that pulse.

Who are the best bloggers? Who is the most influential blogger? Who cares. Everyone has their highs and lows. I think the aggregated group of search bloggers are far more interesting than any one search blogger will ever be.

PS: Sorry for breaking rule number #256: “Don’t blog about blogging”. You’re right – it’s anal