small signs of blogs reaching the mainstream

Hot Searches is one of my favorite sections on our homepage. It gives me a quick idea of what people are talking about in the blogosphere. I’ve noticed that our community searches on a broader range of topics than the technology/ political and current event posts that we normally see featured in the blogosphere. Today’s hot searches include Ben Roethlisberger (bad motorcycle accident for the Steelers QB), Mariah Carey (she lost a bomb of weight), The U.S. Open and of course the World Cup (GOOOOAAAAAAAAL). Another search that just moved into the top ten for the day is people looking for posts talking about the Garrison Keillor article he wrote for Tribune Media Services. I found this development particularly interesting because it serves as an example of how the blog reader can be (and is in this case) very different from the blog writer. Only a handful of bloggers (4 at the time of this post) have blogged about the article yet it’s surfaced as one of our top searched on terms.

I’m excited to see both trends, more mainstream topic searches and readership interest driving the discussion. It’s not only nice to see other blog topics gaining readership, it’s critical if the blogosphere is going to cross into the mainstream content habit. We’d love to hear your thoughts on what you think will help the blogosphere become more mainstream.