Dan Farber has a nice commentary on the state of blogging after 10 years based on his informal confab with Dave Winer, who arguably is the inventor of blogging.

10 years of blogging is misleading in the sense that the true tipping point is about … now …. as blogs are now a key shaping force in so many aspects of society.

Dan notes the common criticism of blogging as a bunch of amateurs spouting junk and mediocrity.   Of course blogging is all that, but mediocrity is hardly something that distinguishes blogging from conventional media.   Mainstream media, especially TV, has *always* been a few shiny gems buried deep in an ocean of irrelevance and celebrity gossip.    I’d rather find the gems within billions of pages of amateur but expert-in- their field-ramblings than thousands of pages of jaded professional “journalism” that must often focus on maintaining profitability or readership as much as uphold the so called standards of excellence that IMHO have not characterized commercial journalism since …  hey….quality standards have never been they key driving force of journalism!