The RSS Blog

Dave Sifry:  On July 31, 2006, Technorati tracked its 50 millionth blog.

Kevin Burton: There might have been 50 million blogs that have ever been created but there aren't 50 million blogs in active use.

Randy: Kevin is disputing David Sifry's claim that there are 50 million blogs. Unfortunately Kevin made four mistakes in his arguments.

1. Dave never claimed there are 50 million active blogs or even 50 million blogs. He said, Technorati is tracking 50 million blogs. 
2. Kevin believes Dave when he makes the leap to suggest that the size of Technorati's index is the size of the blogosphere. It isn't. The blogosphere is not constrained by the size of Technorati's index. But even worse, the KBCafe search blog is ranked 601 in the Technorati index. There is no KBCafe search blog. Never was. Technorati does not track blogs at all, but rather it tracks stuff.
3. Kevin suggests that an active blog is one that is posted to daily. I'm subscribed to some blogs and author other blogs, which I consider active, but only receive a weekly or monthly post. These blogs receive little attention, but are a rather large part of the blogosphere.
4. Technorati is only counting blogs in their index. The truth is, there are countless more than 50 million blogs. It's much closer to 100-200 million.