What a Girl Wants

From a Sunday New York Times (Douglas Quenqua) story entitled "Blogs Falling In an Empty Forest," this:

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream—or at least an ambition—unfulfilled.

And later:

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the internet, but "it's probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views." He added, "There's a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one."

Statistics are statistics, and I'm not here to counter those. But I do wish to suggest this morning how downright thrilling it is when blogging communities emerge and thrive. Readergirlz, the online book club for teens, is a prime example. The virtual worlds that bloggers such as My Friend Amy, Presenting Lenore, HipWriterMama, Ravenous Reader, The Holly and The Ivy, The Curly Q, An Aerial Armadillo, Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder, and Pop Culture Junkie (among many others) generate are real and human (if you doubt the human part, follow the adventures of Cuileann, Faith, and Miss Erin—long-time blogging friends—who met in person for the first time this week). And last evening, Chasing Ray—always inventive, always forthright, impeccably well read—launched a project in which I am honored to participate—a summer-long tour of the minds of a rich slate of YA authors, all of whom are answering questions spawned by the general theme, What a Girl Wants.

Today, Lorie Ann Grover, Sara Ryan, Melissa Wyatt, Laurel Snyder, Margo Raab, Jenny Davidson, and others (including me) are reflecting on the question, "What book affected you most as a tween/teen?"

Check it out, if you have some time.