How 'bout These Apples - Canadians Leading the Blogosphere

Everyday I hear from the naysayers that blogs are just a passing fancy authored by an angry mob of amateurs and mavericks with a fringe audience and impending fatigue which will drive people back into mainstream media.

Based on the numbers from comScore (by way of Marc Snyder), Canadians vehemently disagree.

I was honestly shocked to see the numbers so high. Our level of connectivity or broadband penetration is really not that much higher than anybody else on the leaderboard to justify the enormous gap between ourselves and particularly the US.

So what's the reason then for leading the blog race (remember Canadians are always happier in third place)?

I remember Conan O'Brien summed up his love of Canadians recently and for a Boston-raised comic pretty much nailed the Canadian psyche "we root for the underdog, take a global view and really don't take a lot at face value always having a considered opinion on things." Perhaps the reason for our appetite for blogs? (ping...I can already hear American readers to this post getting comment angry)   

Back to the blogging critics, these people typically come in 5 flavours - have you seen them before?:

1) Cultural Conservatives - unless I read about it in the Globe & Mail or hear about it from Lloyd, Peter or Kevin at night (or Katie, Larry, Anderson, Brian and Jon in the US) , it's not news

2) "The World Is Travelling Too Fast" Confused - these people will be reading blogs in whatever form they come in 3-5 years from now, however currently in their minds - a blog and a wiki are more likely be associated with an exotic sushi meal   

3) Time starved or ego-centric "My Life has Too Many Priorities for This Type" People - I have empathy for these people but it's really not a good reason to lose engagement in the world around you - taking 20 minutes every week to read your best blogs can't be the tedious "beneath you" burden you're making out to be

4) Corporate Ostriches - these people stopped learning about their profession back in 1992 and still quote "Where's the Beef" as the pinnacle of marketing craft, they would like to put the blogging genie back in the bottle (along with the word of mouth mermaid, search engine fairy and the YouTube siren)

5) I Want To Try But Where Do I Start - like fax machines and cell phones before them, there will come a "tipping point" when these people will see more risk in not jumping in the blogging deep end then shivering standing on the deck. Until then, somebody needs to make better sense of the 55 million blogs so they can take a confident "user-generated" toe in water. Just as there is a Z-list of blogs, there will come a day when there will be an institutionalized A-list helping new people to blogs  make an easy entry.