Karim Bakhtiar's Blog

10 Million Blogs and The Britney Spears Linux Test

 

10,000,000

 

Last week, leading blog search engines Technorati, PubSub and BlogPulse all said that they were indexing over 10 million blogs.

That's more than one for every person in New York city.

That's more than one for every person in London.

And that's just the blogs they know about. Others estimate the true figure to be between  30,000,000 and 50,000,000. 

Blogging is snowballing. The mainstream media are regularly introducing their readers to the best blogs as they republishing the cream of the gossip, breaking news and analysis from top blogs. These high-profile blogs are inspiring their readers to create their own blogs.

Over the next few years I believe blogging will lose its 'geeky' image, as more *shudder* normal people start blogs. The sort who care more about Britney Spears than the Linux Kernel. (At the moment my Britney Spears Linux Test shows 'Linux' beating 'Britney' by 175,000 to 118,000. When Britney triumphs, the geeks will have lost.)

Idiot-proof blog-publishing tools are the fuel of the blog explosion. Services such as Blogger, MSN Spaces, Yahoo 360 and LiveJournal let anyone create a blog, for free, in under five minutes. 

I believe that blogs are close to joining DVDs, email and instant messaging in the ranks of once-geeky things embraced by an increasingly tech-savvy mainstream.

I shall keep you posted on the results of the Britney Spears Linux test, as I know you're merely feigning your indifference...

Murdoch Gets It

Rupert Murdoch's speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors shows us why he's a billionaire. He's a clued-up change-embracing strategist of the highest order.

His entire life has been a case of betting big against the opinions of 'experts', and winning.

When British Satellite TV Broadcaster and TV Producer Sky was launched, the experts predicted failure. People wouldn't pay for TV. They didn't want it. Murdoch bet against them, and Sky is now the most popular, most choice-enhancing thing to ever happen to British Television.

When Fox News was launched, no-one believed there was space for a fourth network, lest of all one that broke all the rules of how television news 'ought' to be done. The experts were wrong, Murdoch was right, Fox News is now the most popular news channel in America. The others didn't know what hit them. Couldn't the stupid public see that Fox News was pro-military pro-republican pro-America? Why would Americans choose to watch such a channel (um, 'cause they're pro-military pro-American and half are pro-republican?)

Update: It seems that British Center-Right Broadsheet The Times is already following Murdoch's advice that NewsCorp newspapers need to start blogs.

Bloglines

The next generation of newspapers is here. And you're its editor.

You decide which type of story get covered. You hand-pick the columnists. You get the most insightful analysis straight from experts and those on the front line.

Your newspaper is tailored to you. It's everything you want from a newspaper, and nothing else.

This isn't some technical utopia. It's something that's available to you right now.

Visit Bloglines.com and sign up in 60 seconds. Then choose the people and sources you want to read. Available sources include the BBC, Reuters, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Register and 9 million blogs. If you see this logo, there's a feed you can add to Bloglines: 

Here are the news and information sources I read every day

They give me a mix of UK Business News, Political Rants, B2B Small Business Marketing Tips, Chess, Digital Media, Dilbert cartoons, Pop culture, Parody, Political Gossip, Quotations, Telecoms industry news and Geeky stuff that's far superior to anything I can get from a newspaper.

I suggest you sign up to the Bloglines service, which is free, and find a selection of feeds that  cover your own interests. http://www.bloglines.com/

Hello Cyberstalker

[Last Updated: 28 Dec 2009]

To aid your stalking efforts, I have put together this little guide.

NAME: Karim Bakhtiar

AGE: 32

LOCATION: London, England

PROFESSION: Marketer

HOBBIES: Reading, fighting information overload

INTERESTS: Marketing, self-improvement, the cultural impact of technological change, British political gossip, business.

POLITICS: Libertarian, Capitalist, Secular, republican, democratic.

SPELLING: Erroneous British, usually. Erroneous American for this blog.

FAVORITE TV: 24 (Fox), Damages (FX), Newswipe (BBC4), Red Eye (Fox News), Sky News, The Apprentice (NBC)

FAVORITE MOVIES: The Truman Show, Cruel Intentions, Groundhog Day

FAVORITE BOOKS:

• The Power of Focus
     (by Jack Canfield , Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt)
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra
     (by Friedrich Nietzsche)
• The Brand You50
     (by Tom Peters)
• Your Marketing Sucks
     (by Mark Stevens)
• Atlas Shrugged
     (by Ayn Rand)
• The Way
     (by Josemaria Escriva)
• The Welfare State We're In
     (by James Bartholomew)
• Jump In!
     (by Mark Burnett)
• Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers
     (by Harold Evans)