William Powers’ National Journal article, Those Busted Blogs, is oh, so timely. Just last week I was speaking to a group about social media and noted that a backlash against the blosophere was inevitable. Blogging was too hot and the forecasts of bloggers’ devastating impact on traditional media too overblown. A time would come soon, I said, when the tide of public opinion would turn against blogging and bloggers would be pilloried for being dogmatic, amateurish know-nothings.

So it was kind of amusing to see Powers’ piece document just the kind of firestorm I expected. It cites a Gallup poll saying that only 9% of U.S. Internet users regularly read blogs. See my earlier post for my opinion on this kind of research. The article also quotes a New York magazine and Slate articles saying that the blogosphere is becoming pendulous and polluted with garbage, thereby limiting its value.

The latter point is valid. A lot of people are jumping into the blog pool right now just to test the water. But what’s wrong with that? I expect 90% of those people won’t stay very long but the blogosphere will be fine without them. This phenomenon has too much momentum and too much value to fade away. This backlash was going to happen and will probably continue for a year or so. Then it, too, will fade, blogging will re-establish itself as a valuable and viable medium and life will go on. This is so predictable.

I should note, BTW, that the Powers piece is critical of the critics:

“…Most bloggers are not in it for money — they do it for love. The mainstream outlets would now have us believe that this is a bit pathetic. Just look at those dreadful audience numbers, the scanty profits. I say 20 million or so bloggers know otherwise. Once they were up, and now they’re down. It’s the classic arc of an establishment-media fad. It’s weird that so many bloggers bought into it, given their feelings about the establishment. Never mind: They’ll be back.”

Indeed, they will.