There are 20 million blogs worldwide and yet only a small number garner enough eyeballs for advertisers to take notice. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 9 percent of Internet users frequently read blogs and a whopping 66 percent of Internet users said they never read blogs. Given their lack of mainstream success, why do blogs have such an influence over mainstream media? "[M]any bloggers will argue that the influence of blogs is immeasurably greater than their readership statistics would suggest," Gallup says, "because of the disproportionate influence they have on opinion leaders, political insiders and modern news media." Even if blogs fail as a business model, a small number will continue to attract a loyal readership. Read the whole story...

The fight between and Martha and Donald is getting as messy as Martha Stewart's kitchen on her maid's day off. What's the point in rehashing the past in such a public forum? Many believe the sparring is both ego- and attention-driven. "Some need air to live, but publicity is the source of life [for Stewart and Trump] that keeps them going, in a business sense," says Fraser Seitel, a partner at media consulting firm Emerald Partners and a professor of public relations at New York University's graduate business school. Someone once said that any publicity is good publicity--and this war of words came on the heels of two major announcements: the first quarterly profit in two years for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and the upcoming season premiere of Trump's "The Apprentice." Read the whole story...

In an interview with Nielsen CEO Susan Whiting, new Forbes columnist James Brady discusses her March trip to mainland China ("We're going to measure their television--Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong”) and “a dramatically defining moment” in her career, the dispute with Rupbert Murdoch over whether people meters were undercounting minority viewership of Fox stations. “We said, 'Let the market work its way,' and it did,” notes Weiner, adding that “I don't think damage was done.” Whiting also talks about Nielsen’s moves into measuring audience on the Internet, and, in response to Brady’s question about the rumored sale of parent company VNU, “coolly reminds [him] that Nielsen has been acquired before--once by Dun & Bradstreet.” Read the whole story...

Medical information site Web MD will be taking on a new role, helping consumers compile personal health data online. The company says it has signed contracts with large health insurance companies as well as employers to run private sites where employees can keep track of their medical records and check out ratings for doctors and hospitals. This effort “could be the most visible test yet of whether the time has finally come for using the Internet as much more than an online medical encyclopedia and health care news medium,” according to an Associated Press report in The New York Times. Read the whole story...