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"This past weekend, much of the Mashable team descended on Las Vegas for the second annual BlogWorldExpo.  The conference, which brings together hundreds of bloggers and the companies that provide services to them (platform providers, widget makers, and ad networks) is a combination of dozens of discussion panels, exhibiting companies, and of course, parties.  \nAlong the way, much was gleamed about the current state of the blogosphere and social media, and where it all might be heading in the months and years ahead.  The official BlogWorldExpo site has tons of links to coverage around the Web, but here were the major trends spotted by Team Mashable:\nUsers Own The Comments, Not Bloggers\nBy my count, at least a half dozen companies at BWE either provided a commenting system for bloggers or attempted to organize comments in a more meaningful way.  The main premise behind these companies \u2013 which include Disqus, JS-Kit, and SezWho \u2013 is that users should own their comments.   They provide commenters with a login that can be used across all of the blogs that use their system, and then an account where they can go to manage and track all of these comments in a central location.  \nAs such, the argument goes that if you\u2019re a blogger, using one of these systems should improve engagement because users are more likely to comment when they can own it.  These services have been gaining a lot of momentum this year, and the space was further validated yesterday as Automattic acquired one of the top players \u2013 IntenseDebate \u2013 who was also in attendance at BWE.\nWidgets Are Evolving Into Web Rings 2.0\nRemember Web rings from the Internet of the 1990s?  They are making a comeback in a big way in the form of widgets.  Numerous widget providers at BWE were offering publishers ways to improve their page views \u2013 either by syndicating their content elsewhere or by doing a better job of driving intrasite traffic.  \nFor example, Widgetbox has a new network that allows you to place your blog into an interest channel \u2013 such as technology \u2013 and then install a widget that links to content from other members of that channel.  Meanwhile, Lijit looks to increase page views by adding social search to blogs, while Outbrain looks to do the same by identifying your blog's best content and providing widgets that link to it. Of course, the issue with widgets is that they take up real estate on your blog \u2013 real estate that can otherwise be used for making money through ads.  Which brings me to my next point \u2026\nEveryone is Launching an Ad Network\nThere are more options than ever for monetizating your blog, and it would seem that everyone with any sort of scale is trying to get a piece of the pie by launching their own advertising network.  Some \u2013 like Buzzlogic and Technorati \u2013 are already live and accepting new publishers, while others are still under wraps and slated to launch within the next couple months.  The basic premise of most of them is that they have a network that is large enough and has the critical mass necessary to serve advertisers, while having the data about users and blogs needed to target ads effectively.  \nWith so many ad networks launching, consolidation would seem to be inevitable.   Similar to how one of this year\u2019s trends has been aggregating activities from the hundreds of social networks that have launched, perhaps one of next year\u2019s will be aggregating and making sense of all of the ad networks.\nTwitter, Twitter, Twitter\nOne of the most popular posts in the history of this blog was one Pete penned in 2006: \u201CIf You Don\u2019t Get MySpace, You\u2019re a Lametard.\u201D  The same could probably be said these days for Twitter, at least if you\u2019re a blogger or work in the social media space.  \nAside from the fact that Twitter was being used by virtually everyone at the conference to document what was happening and to plan activities, we heard from a number of people and companies not in our immediate social circle that are using Twitter in productive ways.   For example, in the \u201CCreating Customer Loyalty with Social Media\u201D panel, we heard from Tony Hsieh of Zappos, the online shoe company, and Frank Eliason of Comcast, the much-derided cable company, about how their respective companies are using Twitter to respond to customers and improve their customer relationships.\nBlogs Are Increasingly Becoming Mainstream Media and Vice Versa\nCoincidentally, Technorati released its \u201CState of the Blogosphere 2008\u201D report on Monday after BWE concluded.  Many of the findings rang true with what we experienced at BWE, especially the assertion that \u201Cthe lines are continuing to blur\u201D in response to the question \u201Cwhat is a blog?\u201D  \nThere are many reasons for this.  As you\u2019ve probably noticed with the new Mashable design, while we still meet the generic definition of \"a collection of stories posted in reverse-chronological order,\" our blog is now complete with sections for different topics, our own job boards, and also includes coverage and ticketing for our events all around the country.  This trend can be seen on blogs not just in the tech vertical, but all over the Web as blogs become small-to-midsized media companies in every sense of the term.  \nAdditionally, at the same time that large blogs start to resemble mainstream media sites, the amount of blog posts is actually on the decline as so much conversation moves to services like Twitter and Frienfeed.   At BWE, this was certainly the case, leading Louis Gray to ask \u201CQ: Were there any good blog posts that covered the Blog World Expo panels? All those bloggers, and no \"coverage\"?  Did I miss them?\u201D which was quickly met with the following response from Robert Scoble: \u201CThe best coverage was live Tweets and conversations on FriendFeed. That's what http://search.twitter.com and FriendFeed's search is there for ...\"\nSo What Does It All Mean?\nWhile one could easily conclude with the overdramatic \u201Cblogging is dead\u201D as many big blogs transition towards media companies and many individual bloggers embrace microblogging over long-form text, I think the more accurate statement would be \u201Copportunities abound for niche publishers.\u201D  One of the coolest things about BWE was meeting lots of bloggers that are finding success outside of the tech space \u2013 people who are using lots of the same tools that we are to build an audience and reach underserved niches.  \nIn short, while it may not be the best time to start another broad tech, politics, or celebrity gossip blog, if you\u2019re able to find a unique segment within a big vertical, there have never been more ways for finding an audience and building a brand that will resonate.   And, once you\u2019ve done that, there have never been more tools for helping make some money along the way.  So blog on, and thanks to BlogWorldExpo and Las Vegas for a fantastic weekend :)"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/09/24/blogworldexpo-recap/>