What will blogworld look like in its second decade?

Ten years ago last Wednesday, the proprietor of an online link diary called Robot Wisdom introduced the word “weblog” to the world.

Although this is only the 89th weekly Blogspotter column, that still means I’ve been covering the versatile online publishing format for about 17 percent of its existence.

Talk about a medium in its infancy. By comparison, the first English-language newspaper was published way back in 1620. Just think of all the innovations papers have debuted since then: comic strips, syndicated columns, cold type, color photos, Sudoku.

With some 100 million blogs now dotting the Web like mushrooms, it’s no surprise this upstart medium is evolving at a somewhat faster pace. It would thus be foolhardy to predict what blogging will look like in its second decade. So here goes.

“Video will battle text for supremacy. As barriers to entry fall – cameras get cheaper and easier to use every day, and bandwidth grows ever more plentiful – video blogs will become increasingly ubiquitous. And just like when television began marginalizing newspapers, discourse will be dumbed down as a result.

“Traditional news organizations will dominate in the blog ratings. Newspaper sites will make increasingly effective use of blogging as a tool for gathering and disseminating news. Meanwhile, top independent blogs will continue embracing many newsgathering techniques pioneered by the mainstream media. Convergence will be the watchword.

“Mergers and acquisitions will create an increasingly consolidated blogosphere. The long tail of indie sites will keep on wagging, of course, but conglomerates from both the old- and new-media worlds will claim the lion’s share of traffic by gobbling up promising blogs and extending their reach into every conceivable content niche.

“Blogs will help destroy the for-profit porn industry. With innumerable blogs serving up short, often homemade erotic video clips and photo sets free to horny surfers, demand for sexy DVDs and professional pay sites will continue shriveling faster than Bob Dole peering into an empty Viagra bottle. Executives of the music and print newspaper industries will gloat about not being the first ones to go under.

“Younger generations weaned on texting and instant messaging will gravitate primarily to short-form blogging services such as Twitter while sharing bursts of information with their peers on social networking sites.

“Group blogs with multiple contributors and active comment sections will outpace the sole-proprietor model that reigned supreme in the form’s early years.

If none of those predictions prove true, you won’t be able to hold me accountable. That’s because this is my last Blogspotter column. I’m moving to Illinois next month to become editor in chief of Time Out Chicago, a traditional glossy magazine that also boasts a robust collection of blogs.

On my way out the door, I’d like to thank Spokesman-Review Editor Steve Smith, who welcomed me aboard as a 7 contributor in 2003 and later invited me to write this column.

I’m also grateful to previous Blogspotter editors Addy Hatch and Alison Boggs for their keen eyes and good humor, and to Web guru Ryan Pitts for lending a hand every time I asked.

But most of all, I want to thank the readers of my S-R columns and associated blogs. Ironically, Blogspotter never really caught fire online (my fault). But the Hard 7 site recently became one of this newspaper’s most popular blogs after we opened up the comment spigot.

Readers put that blog on the map by engaging in spirited political debates that became bigger draws than the posts themselves.

That’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned in my time here: Giving you a voice in the site made all the difference.

I hope you’ll keep those conversations rolling long after I’m gone.