Has Blogging Reached Its Peak?

That's what some news reports are saying.  I'm writing this in December 2006, so you can put the remarks into context a year or two from now!  

Recent analysis of web-traffic suggests that the number of new blogs being created is finally declining.  Plus the amount of time that people spend reading blogs is falling.  

The media spin on this is great: blogs are outdated, blogs are no longer exciting, it was all just overblown hype.  But the media love to go for doom and gloom stories, don't they?

The blogging community can reply succinctly to point out that there are literally hundreds of people in the world who still don't have Internet Access.  Huge numbers of people in the developing world are yet to get online and discover blogs.  For instance, only about 10% of people in China and 14% of people in Brazil regularly get online.  Obviously there is a huge untapped readership still out there.