Ben Macintyre in the Times thinks Blogs are the best thing since sliced paper:
In 1999, there were perhaps 50 bloggers on the web; by next year, according to Perseus Development Corporation consultancy, some ten million blogs will have been created. Not since the 17th-century print explosion, which brought serial publication and pamphleteering to a genuinely mass market, has there been such an important shift in the way public opinion is created and shaped.
Well, let’s wait and see. As Harry has observed next year’s election might be a chance to test this hypothesis. Meanwhile, if Macintyre is right about about Blogging in the Islamic Republic the theocracy might want to start a pre-emptive fatwah against the accursed internet:
In Iran, several anti-government newspapers have been closed down, but the Iranian blogosphere is booming, with 6,000 separate blogs. Farsi is now the fourth most widely used language on web logs.