If you’ve taken the time to enter my blog, you’ve chosen to hear what I have to say out of nearly 20 million other blogs. So, today I wanted to take a minute and tell you what I think about blogging in general, and pass along a few statistics I discovered recently.

This blog is not my online journal. I’ve got a spiral notebook for that, and it’s full of my private thoughts where I work through things on my mind, add in some scripture I’m reading, then try to turn my words into a prayer that God will please help me to see His perspective on things. It’s a struggle for me every day, to try to replace my way of thinking with His. (see Isaiah 55:8-9, Romans 12:2)

I started this blog because I wanted to join the community of millions of other bloggers. It’s really quite amazing — that an ordinary person can have a spot in the blogosphere the same as a huge corporation or a powerful person. It’s made the world a much more honest place, in my opinion. If a company promises something in its advertising, then doesn’t deliver on that promise, people can talk about it online. I’m much more likely to believe a person who actually used or owns a product than the company itself, which must make a profit in order to survive.

For me, it’s also a chance to get a word in edgewise! I’m usually surrounded by kids, a position I love to be in, yet I tend to small-talk and chit-chat and avoid topics that require concentration. In the past several months, two of my brothers-in-law and a sister-in-law have also started blogging. It’s been so fun to get to know them on a deeper level that involves writing!

For example, I’ve known one brother-in-law for over 20 years, but I didn’t know he absolutely loves Walden. He shared with us recently: “Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is best read yearly. Always consult before buying property or a house, and before starting a new job.” Interesting. I haven’t read it since high school. Maybe I should.

According to Technorati, which tracks nearly 20 million blogs and over a billion links every day, the most-discussed news story right now is Time Magazine’s List of the Top 100 English Language Novels Since 1923. You can read the list, then also read how people react to it. At the Technorati home page, you can also see what the most popular movies, books, and blogs are — isn’t that interesting? What if we had a record of what people were talking about a century ago?

Technorati also posted this recently:

• As of October 2005, Technorati is now tracking 19.8 million weblogs.

• The total number of weblogs tracked continues to double about every 5 months.

• The blogosphere is now over 30 times as big as it was 3 years ago, with no signs of letup.

• About 70,000 new weblogs are created every day.

• About a new weblog is created each second.

• 2% – 8% of new weblogs per day are fake or spam weblogs.

• Between 700,000 and 1.3 million posts are made each day.

• About 33,000 posts are created per hour, or 9.2 posts per second.

You can read the whole article here.

So, I think blogging will stick around for a while.

How about you? Have you started blogging yet?