He's Not Far Off the Mark 

Instapundit calls it a weak slam... I think John Dvorak's article about blogging isn't that far off:

The key to understanding why I'm not seeing the kind of feedback Mac users provide comes from a set of numbers out of IBM. Apparently, in a company that is all about computers and technology, officials have determined that there are maybe 2,800 or so blogs out of a universe of maybe 330,000 employees. It's believed that perhaps 200 of these are active. Microsoft has promoted blogging within its company, and if you visit the blogs there you see a similar phenomenon: lack of interest.
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That still implies a lot of bloggers, but the penetration is pathetic when compared to just about anything sold into the market. And blogging is free, mind you.

The fact is, and you should note this, blogging software is essentially high-quality content management software with limited functionality. Its usefulness is limited to those people who have a need for content management software. Believe me, that need is not up there with word processing. And while there are people who extol the virtues of blogging, saying that everyone should do a journal or become a blogger for whatever reason, the true audience is minuscule relative to the total number of computer users online.

He's absolutely right. The media has grabbed onto blogging as the "next thing". If email was the new technical medium in the early 90's, and IM was the medium of the late 90's, then blogging is certainly the new medium of the 2000's. The media has certainly billed it as a big thing, and so naturally people are experimenting. Lots of people are starting blogs, and telling their friends and families about them.

Technorati is tracking millions of blogs, but what they don't track is how many are still maintained. That is the reality of a new technology. People still aren't quite sure what it's all about... and they won't know until they try it. What people are finding out however is that blogging isn't like email, and it's not like instant messenger. Not everyone is cut out to blog. So a lot of people are starting blogs, but not a lot of people are maintaining them.

Blogging started out with a lot of technical people, because it involves computers and the internet, and so naturally attracts geeks. That's why the IBM numbers seem so interesting. But in reality, blogging is for writers. You have to be excited about writing, and passionate about what you write about. Maybe you're passionate about sharing your personal life, or you're excited about politics, or you need to show off your knitting, or maybe you just have creative writing juices that need to flow. If you're passionate about sharing anything, then blogging is for you. You don't have to be a geek to start one, and not all geeks are cut out to have one. Blogging isn't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with that. Pointing that out is certainly no slam.