I think it is time to apply the Gartner Hype Cycle to blogging. Weblogging has now gone sufficiently mainstream to be useful in mainstream advertising (in the Bay Area at least). That marks a new highpoint in public expectation of weblogging. So we're at peak 1 or peak 2. Now presumable everybody will blog, blog.hotmail.com will appear and AOL will regain profitability because of a new AOL blogging craze, and the ensuing cacophony will disappoint - whereafter blogging will find a realistic place in the world of networked media.

Not that I'm looking for bad news; but a plausible onset of a downturn would be the failure of the Dean grassrots campaign to gather sufficient online momentum to fuel a victory offline. I'm rooting for grassrots on this one - but the immediate future (next year or so) will be interesting.

link via CommonMe.