The demographics suggest that 51.5% of all new blogs created are created by the 13-19 year olds with 20-29 year olds taking second place at 39.6%. That means a total of 91.1% of all blogs are not business related. Weblogs Inc. founder Jason McCabe said:

"There are millions of blogs, but I would say less than 1 million are updated regularly. So less than 1 percent of the country is blogging,..."

When you stop to think that the 1% that is regularly blogging with 91.1% of this not being business related it means that a lot of the business related hype about blogs has been created more by enthusiastic bloggers and that it may be too early to tell if it will become a viable resource or simply a time waster for businesses putting their efforts into blogging.

I think it is a tool — another way to reach like-minded individuals — to help accelerate business relationships. It's not a "magic pill" and ignoring other channels in favor of blogs will be at your own peril.

Let's look at my client base which consists of small business owners and entrepreneurs. 98% of them have no idea what a blog is or why they should be interested in learning about blogs. It is marketing as usual for these folks. Likewise, even though entrepreneurs who use the web to market their goods and services tend to be a little more web savvy then their customers, most of them would be at a loss to try and convince their customers/clients why they should install software to subscribe to their RSS feeds. It is just too new for a lot of people to understand yet.

Some customers will stumble on your blog while visiting your site, or they may see a link to an article on your blog that has been indexed by a search engine. Most of these people will see this as an article archive without understanding the technology behind it.

Overall, the time spent on blogs is worthwhile, but the enthusiasm of bloggers and there practical use is still largely to be determined.

For me?

It gives me a place to post my rambling thoughts to, and archive a few issues of my HomeBusiness Websites Journal. By promoting the blog to the blog directories linked to the RSSTop55 - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites it has helped double my traffic, but I don't feel it has actually helped me bring in any new clients.