The report from the conference Exploring the Fusion Power of Public and Participatory Journalism, held Aug. 3 in Toronto, is now available (I saw the link at WarrenKinsella.com).

Energized by it, I made my first blog posting less than two weeks later. If you don't like this blog, blame the conference. :)

For the record, I believe that on Nov. 25, 2003, I posted a note to online-news asking whether we'd still be talking as much about blogs a year from now.

On Nov. 25, 2004, I made seven posts, not one of which acknowledged the stunning lack of vision in my earlier question (nor did I send a follow-up note to online-news).

So, consider the lack of vision acknowledged. :)

But while blogs might be a big deal among the digiterati, they haven't become a staple of the hoi polloi's media diet.

Check out this post of Dakid Akin's; 56 per cent of respondents to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released March 11 say they don't even know what a blog is.

Thirty-two per cent of Internet users in the survey admitted to some familiarity and only three per cent said they read a blog every day.

Anyways, that little reality check aside, read the report, and you'll perhaps see why I got excited about the potential in these new forms of participatory online media.

Allow me to make another fearless prediction. In five years, blogs will be as common as e-mail addresses.

And remember: A stopped clock is still right twice per day. :)