Blogging has become a national pastime of sorts. Media pundits can't stop buzzing about the "blogosphere," and it seems that even the most technologically challenged individuals are becoming bloggers. If momentum continues, blogs could become a bigger fad than the hula-hoop, 3-D movies, and low-carb diets combined.

For those not up to speed on the latest developments in Internet media, Web logs, or "blogs," are wildly-popular Internet-based publications consisting of articles and diary entries updated regularly by individual users called "bloggers." Blogs may be the writings of a single author or a community of contributors, and typical blog content ranges from political discourse and Hollywood gossip to diary rants and cultural commentary. Although early Web logs were manually updated, browser-based software tools have since automated the medium for easy use.

But while blogs are enormously popular, media analysts and entrepreneurs are wondering if they have real moneymaking potential. Blogs are independent platforms for personal diatribes and hot political discourse; as such, such they attract large readership and may someday rival newspapers and magazines. Some companies like IBM have begun using blogs as a useful collaboration and productivity tool for the workplace. But until marketers learn how to monetize the medium, blogs may prove to be little more than soapboxes of the Internet era.