I agree totally Gavin! At the same time, participation varies across countries and contexts - it is worth thinking about why. Some of my more detailed thoughts on the role of social media (which I think are highly aligned with yours) are in our Future of Media Strategic Framework (center of the report): http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/Future_of_Media_Report2006.pdf

Thanks for your thoughts.... To support my comments about blogging activity relating to bandwidth, see our recent Future of Media Report at: http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2007/07/launching_the_f_1.html The chart on the bottom of p7 shows a clear correlation across nations between bandwidth and time spent online. If there are more people online, who spend more time online, they are more likely to blog - and read blogs - than otherwise. I should note that Graeme doesn't pretend to be an expert on blogging - he's a journalist writing a newspaper column. The analysis quoted is mine.