Blogging 101

Cedar Pruitt has a nice piece introducing weblogs up at the digital divide network. Among other things, she points off to a recent survey done by the Pew Project on the Internet and American Life on blogging. Among their statistics:

"8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is."

I'm convinced that blogging is going to be particularly useful for those pastors who like to connect people and ideas. I've already heard from a couple who've found the process of blogging has helped their congregations better understand what the pastors are doing. Podcasting will be the next "new" thing, and I think it has a lot of potential for churches, too. It's such a capital-easy way of "broadcasting" audio content.