It’s definitely a jungle out there. Clive Thompson’s account of the haves and have-nots of blogging makes that very clear: To become an A-list blogger you have to sit round the clock in front of computer and TV screens, but maybe it’s too late anyway, because the first movers are so very far ahead of you. And if you make it, the work has only started. If you relax, the hungry hordes will overtake you and merciless readers leave you (no wonder this is a US-dominated market, European blogs would die during our long vacations!).

Thompson focuses on bloggers with a commercial ambition, which sort of limits the scope. Most C- or D-list bloggers are happy amateurs, surely? Anyway, Thompson recognizes three business models for blogging:

• The accidental tourist: “A lone writer who starts a blog as a mere hobby but then wakes up one day to realize his audience is now as big as a small city newspaper.” Example: Talking Points Memo.
• The record-label approach: “Crank out dozens and dozens of sites and hope that one or two will become hits.” Example: Weblogs Inc.
• The boutique approach: “A publisher who crafts individual blogs the way Condé Nast crafts magazines – each one carefully aimed at some ineffable, deluxe readership.” Example: Nick Denton.

Thompson puts Shirky’s power law classic to good use in explaining the inequalities of the commercial blogging scene. But how is the relationship between non-commercial and business-oriented bloggers going to develop? The blog entrepreneur Elizabeth Spiers makes an interesting prediction: Full-time staff is the future of the “professional blogosphere”:

It’lll be more like the mainstream media, really… Blogging is increasingly becoming a survival of the fittest – and that all boils down to who has the best content. The blogs that are going to stand out are the ones who break news and have credibility.

The future – a ruthless meritocracy.

UPDATE: Dave Sifry with new analysis in the Technorati weblog: He coins the term “The Magic Middle” for all those blogs that are between the A-list chartbusters and all the rest at the end of the very long tail. He includes a lot of blogs in the middle by defining that as blogs with from 20-1000 other people linking to them. About 155.000 blogs come in this category.