So Arianna Huffington is coming to London and Iain Dale is having his second coming. He tells the Guardian:

“I’ve recruited 40 or 50 friends to write for the site. Some are well known, others aren’t. The thing they have in common in that they’re all great writers. And I’m giving a second life to some of the best bloggers who’ve stopped blogging over the last year. Will it work? No idea. But it’s costing nothing and if it fails the only red face will be mine.”

Which is the Arianna strategy and AOL paid her $315 million. Dale reckons the mainstream media has ‘eaten up the blogosphere’. It is true to say of the Dead Tree Press “we are all bloggers now”, but has it hit our audience? Guido thinks not, look at the numbers (and this is excluding RSS, Twitter, Kindle and other pay per view distribution platforms) the trend is still positive :

In terms of mindshare if anything our audience is firming up where it matters – amongst opinion leaders. Comment is free, but news is what people want, and news is what people don’t want you to know, all else is advertising. Bring it on…