Time celebrates blogs

Via Steve Rubel (whom I'll finally meet next month at BlogOn): Time magazine has a story this week on how more people getting their news from blogs. Meet Joe Blog: Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased.

Over the past five years, blogs have gone from an obscure and, frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence. Which raises the question: Who are these folks anyway? And what exactly are they doing to the established pantheon of American media?