The subject of this post is intentionally sensational. I see blogging as the internet equivalent of word-of-mouth. One of the issues I've been brooding recently, now that blogging and all the related community services have really, really hit the big time, is what is going to happen to the concept of internet word of mouth. Basically, companies and the mass media have picked up on blogging and word of mouth as being a really good marketing channel, which it can be. Of course what is going to happen now is that everyone will start to milk the channel for all they can. This will incentivize more people to get involved for the wrong reasons. The volume of content will surge. The tools currently used to identify popular blogs will be abused and it will become too difficult for the average user to identify the really good content.
This is just a prediction of what could happen. It will be interesting to see what does.
Seth Godin also put up an interesting post on authenticity.
Desktop Author is one of those products that is so cool it makes you (or at least me ;-) almost quiver with digital excitement! It's allows you, in the site's own words to create '3D page turning digital web books'.