A few people are arguing that I've overstated the case when I say that blogs have already reached the tipping point. I can get into one of those "yes-they-have!" "No they have not!" debates that seem so popular in the blogosphere these days.
Instead, let me quote from Malcolm Gladwell, an author and speaker who I hold in extremely high regard; whose public presentations and two books have influenced how I think and what I write.
"... ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us."
I had Malcolm's words in mind when I first wrote this statement last October. Blogging is a social epidemic. It can no longer be isolated or contained. The rate of its spread may be debated, but the fact that the contagion is no longer stoppable is hard to deny, unless you ignore the history of technology's spread over the past several centuries, or if you think we are in no danger from dead birds in places far from where you may or may not live.
