12/05/03 - 10:27 AM - Like observers from another planet, some commentators have taken our idea of nanoaudiences as a sign of the failure of blogs. I can almost see them writing, "Most e-mail messages only have a single reader. Clearly, e-mail messages are not going to change the world." Yet again and again people tell me that e-mail has changed their lives—they hear regularly now from old friends, who—without e-mail—would no longer be communicating with them. An e-mail message with an audience of one can still be a success on the author's terms. Similarly, blogs with a dozen readers are often successful on their authors' terms.
Blogs are far more of a social phenomenon than many commentators want to address, and people socialize in groups of all sizes. Blogs are a great communication method for sharing anecdotes, stories and links; blogs join the personal communications arsenal of cell phones and e-mail. I encourage those commentators interested only in circulation numbers to sit on their heads and see the blogosphere in a new way. "This is Mork calling Orson... Come in, Orson..."