Dave Sifry, CEO of Technorati, has posted Part I of his quarterly State of the Blogosphere at his site.

Leading off with this major headline, Sifry outlines the continuing onslaught of the blogosphere:

I continue to marvel at it, but the blogosphere continues to grow at a quickening pace. Technorati currently tracks 35.3 Million weblogs, and the blogosphere we track continues to double about every 6 months

Sifry goes on to outline some other significant metrics:

• 75,000 new blogs created daily
• 3.9m bloggers update at least once weekly
• Technorati is tracking approximately 50,000 posts an hour
• 19.4m bloggers are still blogging today after starting at least 3 months ago

Other parts of the State of the Blogosphere should be posted soon providing more in-depth analysis of some factors.

Mark Evans comments thoughtfully on Sifry’s report:

While Sifry’s take on the blogosphere provides an intriguing snapshot of what’s happening, it will be far more interesting to see how the business of blogs evolves this year. The Centre for Media Research recently published a forecast of advertising growth on blogs over the next five years – see my post here. As more advertising gravitates to the blogosphere, most of it will likely flow to Big Media blogs and blog networks such as John Battelle’s Federated Media. It will also be interesting to see the growth of podcasts and video-blogs as the tools to create them become even more user-friendly.

My own prediction: blogging will continue to grow in the coming year, but podcasts and videoblogging will pick up steam.

LIke Mark states in his post above, 2006 will be the year that big media moves into the blogosphere – and we’ve already seen the beginning of that with AOL’s acquisition of Weblogs, Inc and the launch of mini-blog networks by the BBC and NY Times. Hopefully, it will be a year of continued success for blog networks!

Other coverage: Media Buyer Planner, Qumana, Steve Rubel, Blogger’s Blog, and our favorite tech.memorandum.