We wondered, last week, why the blogosphere appeared to be reaching its point of maximum size at about 15 million active blogs. CV said there was a finite number of people who could write interesting tidbits. Toni Schneider, of the Wordpress blog publishing platform, noted that sites which didn't update might still draw meaningful traffic. But here's the strongest explanation, made by Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, among others: personal publishing is still growing, but the fastest growth is occurring on social media properties such as Myspace and Digg; on "directed blogging" sites such as Yelp, the collaborative restaurant review site; and on new publishing platforms such as Twitter, which deliver posts not just to a web page, but to a reader's instant messaging client. Amateur publishers may not be drawing back from the traditional blog but, rather, moving beyond it.

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