As Blogger nears it’s tenth birthday the Blogger team has published some interesting data:

• Every minute of every day, 270,000 words are written on Blogger
• Millions of people worldwide use Blogger to publish to their blog each week
• Almost two thirds of Blogger’s traffic comes from outside North America (What’s the #2 country after the U.S.? Brazil, followed by Turkey, Spain, Canada, and the U.K.)
• The most popular sport for our bloggers? Soccer (that’s football to the rest of the world), more than four times larger than the #2 sport, baseball

While the team at Techcrunch a comparison with other blog platforms and Twitter published (see graphic below), the real question to ask here is in how far Facebook a blogging platform has become for many people.

Like many people I started blogging on Blogger and moved then to a self-hosted WordPress setup but would not set up a personal blog anymore in 2009. Facebook and Twitter certainly have filled in the need for a personal blog for me. Like Paul Boutin says:

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

There is no doubt that Google made a great decision purchasing Blogger, especially considered the amount of Adsense ads the Blogger platform runs, but the biggest question is if blogs will continue to grow perpetuously or if there will be a new shift towards bigger CMS platforms now new media companies such as B5Media Inc. are integrating forums as well on their main blogs.

What is a blog? The line is blurred and we have seen many sites evolve from ‘blog’ to multi-authored magazines. I, for one, am looking forward to read the next State of the Blogosphere at Technorati. You can read the 2008 State of the Blogosphere here.

A pending application to the New York Supreme Court seeks to force Google to divulge the identity of an anonymous blogger because of a few comments made on the Internet on one single day.

A hearing on the motion to reveal the anonymous blogger’s identity is scheduled for tomorrow. The petitioner, fashion model Liskula Cohen, alleges that references to her as a “skank” and “ho” on the website “Skanks in NYC” constitutes actionable libel under New York law and on that ground seeks to unmask the anonymous blogger.

“Despite its seemingly petty underpinnings, this case carries serious implications,” says Debra J. Guzov, co-founder of Guzov Ofsink, LLC, which is defending the anonymous blogger. “We strongly believe that if the plaintiff were to succeed in her efforts, it would move toward the erosion of our basic constitutional right to anonymous free speech.”

“Ideas are exchanged freely on the Internet in large part because participants can speak using assumed names or no name at all,” Guzov added.

How about you? What is your take on this arguments?

Time-crunched? Who isn’t? But there’s no reason why a busy schedule should keep you from getting the essential natural health information you need to make smart health choices.

That conviction inspired Andrew Weil, M.D. to begin Dr. Weil’s Daily Blog. Regularly updated, Dr. Weil’s Daily Blog provides practical advice that Americans living in today’s busy world want and need. Topics include:

• Fundamentals of Dr. Weil’s Anti-Inflammatory Diet
• How to get the most out of vitamins and supplements
• The most effective exercises
• Stress-relief tips
• Green-living guidelines

The new blog will complement Dr. Weil’s existing web sites, each of which provides a unique focus. The flagship site, DrWeil.com, features more than 5,000 pages of detailed and comprehensive information on all aspects of natural health. In addition, Dr. Weil on Healthy Aging explores how to minimize and manage age-related health conditions naturally, and Dr. Weil’s Optimum Health Plan takes plan members through an eight-week program that optimizes the health of body, mind and spirit.

Boing Boing announced the launch of Offworld, a new gaming blog edited by Brandon Boyer with regular contributions from all of the ‘Boingers.’ Offworld aims to distill the fractured, esoteric world of gaming forums, academia, communities, websites and blogs, into an easily digestible feed of the most important and interesting developments in the gaming world.

Offworld covers everything from major mainstream gaming titles to the world of small, independent game developers. Keenly aware that most gamers don’t have the time to troll through all the scattered news sources and sample all of the new games, Offworld contributors will do all the heavy lifting for their readers and profile only the clever, innovative, interesting and fun games that get released.

The Media Bloggers Association (MBA) has launched a comprehensive program to provide bloggers access to the same sort of legal and financial resources long available to traditional media organizations including BlogInsure, a first of its kind liability insurance program for bloggers which provides coverage for all forms of defamation, invasion of privacy and copyright infringement or similar allegations arising out of blogging activities.

The cornerstone of the new program is an online course in media law developed by the Media Bloggers Association in partnership with The Poynter Institute’s News University. The course, Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers, was co-authored by David Ardia of the Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media and Geanne Rosenberg of the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College.

Because the MBA believes so strongly that all bloggers should take this course, it is made available at no charge and, although the course is an integral part of the new MBA membership application process, bloggers are not required to join the MBA to take the course. Payment of annual dues for MBA membership is not requested until after the course has been completed and bloggers may opt-out of the application process at any time.

After completing the exam, bloggers will be asked to take a course assessment; this exam is a prerequisite for individuals interested in joining the Media Bloggers Association so those wishing to join must opt to report their test scores to the MBA. It is also the basis for the significant discount on liability insurance available to bloggers through the BlogInsure program.

BlogHer announced the launch of its Reach Out Tour to take place in October 2008, stopping in six U.S. cities for lively one-day conferences that will bring highlights of its popular sold-out annual conference to a more local stage. The success of the annual conferences prompted BlogHer to embark on a two-week tour to meet the growing demands of its online community of women, and give local bloggers a more intimate environment to discuss blogging basics, lead sessions on local themes and network with their community.

The three BlogHer co-founders will kick off the tour in Boston on October 11 and then continue on to five additional cities. The tour schedule includes: Washington, DC (October 13), Nashville, TN (October 16), Greensboro, NC (October 18), Atlanta, GA (October 21), New Orleans, LA (October 25)

General Motors will be sponsoring this inaugural event by providing attendees within 200 miles of each scheduled city with Saturn hybrid vehicles for carpools to the event. Participating carpoolers will blog about their experiences with the vehicles on BlogHer.com. In addition, GM will bring back their popular “ride and drive” events at each tour location, where bloggers will have the opportunity to test drive varying cars on site.

The conference agendas will be broken up into three distinct sections including: blogging basics to help newcomers start a blog and figure out what their next steps are once they have one; custom topics per city based on themes that will resonate within existing local conversations; and a Geek Lab, facilitated by Sarah Dopp, a creative professional in the tech industry based out of San Francisco.

Instablogs is opening its blog network membership by launching the Instablogs Club. By opening its network, external blogs can now apply to become members of Instablogs Club and enjoy the benefits that its blog network members have been enjoying.

“We decided to open our network to external bloggers so that they can also enjoy some of our network benefits, including but not limited to traffic, ad sales, technology, and networking with our great members,” Ankit Maheshwari, CEO of Instablogs, said.

“The Instablogs Club consists of those who host and maintain independent blogs and would like to avail our platform and showcase their content to millions of Instablogs readers each month. Our aim is to showcase the best blogs on a variety of topics and help bloggers get more exposure,” he added.

The Club is looking for bloggers who are passionate about their blog– one that provides compelling content, consistent in his or her frequency of posting, and is willing to share their knowledge and expertise to other members of the Club.

Club members stand to benefit from Instablogs traffic, revenues, and a vibrant community of blog network members.

Launched in 2005, Instablogs Blog Network enjoys more than 2.5 million pageviews per month. The Club will work to drive traffic to each member and benefit from this attention.

The Club is currently accepting applications and will be announcing its first batch of members next month.

paidContent is reporting that AOL is trimming up for sale, and is also doing some belt-tightening just like everyone else.

Part of its trimming is “asking some its bloggers, who get paid by the post, to stop blogging until July 31 to save on costs.”

The affected blogs are: Diylife.com, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and DownloadSquad.

You pick the news. At least that’s what Propeller wants you to do. Netscape’s Digg clone slash phoenix rising from the ashes has undergone a redesign.

Gone is the traditional up/down voting system. Present is a brand new mascot who looks like Mr. Belvedere and Ask Jeeves’ love child with a George Jetson twist.

The site will still rely on a team of editors and feature a limited number of categories. Personally, I’ve never experienced the Propeller-effect, which by all accounts is much smaller than the Digg-effect. Perhaps this will change as AOL continues to raise the profile of the destination.

The good news is, currently, all stories are entering with a 10.0 rating – so get your butt over there and submit – and you might land on the homepage!

BlogCatalog has launched its Political Channel to take part in what it calls as the most participatory presidential election in history.

“As we approach the Democratic and Republican conventions, BlogCatalog’s Political Channel will serve as a benchmark of what is on the minds of mainstream political bloggers across America,” stated Tony Berkman, BlogCatalog CEO. “With almost 5,000 political bloggers and 114,000 non-political bloggers already part of the BlogCatalog conversational ecosystem, BlogCatalog is the Internet’s leading destination for mainstream political bloggers to have their political voices heard, engage in the political debate, increase their blog’s exposure, and participate in lively discussion.”

If they are successful in creating conversation with all the bloggers within BlogCatalog, this new channel can be a good breeding ground of political opinion.