BusinessWeek magazine published an intriguing article in the June 2, 2008 issue. Beyond Blogs updates outlooks and predictions they made back in 2005 about blogs, social media, and other bleeding-edge web technologies. Stephen Baker and Heather Green, two BusinessWeek writers, compare and contrast the tech trends from 2005 to 2008.

Three years have radically changed the way the main stream media and companies view the power of the blogosphere. BusinessWeek had originally predicted that the mainstream media would make giant commercial strides in blogosphere turf. While many have adapted to utilize the blogosphere to positively impact their companies or business, other have been flabbergasted by the ability of an individual blog to “gain more power than the entire public relations department.” Engadget, Huffington Post, TechCrunch are several examples of blogs that have “flexed their muscles.”

In 2008 there are….

74 million blogs total (9 million total in 2005).

5.2 million blogs that posted within the last two months.

2 to 4 million active blogs.

The social media market has also skyrocketed.

In the past three years…

YouTube jump-started online video sharing, gained 66 million US visitors, and unleashed millions of amateur filmmakers.

Twitter brought micro-blogging to popularity.

Wikipedia became the seventh-most-popular site online (59 million in 2008 versus 5 million in 2005).

Facebook and MySpace became the top two social networks (Friendster was the most predominant in 2005).

iTunes became the leading source for downloading podcasts.

Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast: 2007 To 2013:

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