Ian Welsh blogs in the US and takes a look at the Canadian blogosphere over at Blogs Canada E-Group. It reads like a roadmap for pundits, but even if you aren’t interested in posting politics he makes some good observations.  Welsh compares the Canadian political blogs to the US counterparts.

Key points:

• Early conservative dominance because of early adapability
• Rise of progressive traffic because of political climate
• Clustering - progressives do community better

Welsh points out that the Canadian blogs haven’t been studied and the 10:1 ratio applies.

There are two models for the future growth of the Canadian blogosphere. You can assume it will grow in similiar ways as the US blogosphere, or you can assume that either Canada is different enough, or that the pre-existence of the US blogosphere has changed things enough that it won’t.

Americans are more conservative than Canadians, and Canadian blogs have formed alliances and link systems in the absense of “A” list blogs. That may change some of the patterns of growth in Canadian political blogging. He wonders if Canadian readers have gone to where the product is - a large portion of Canadian blog readers read US blogs, without US blogs covering Canada.

Finally he takes a look at what blogs can do following what has happened in the US: raise money, put pressure on media, companies and politicans, keep stories alive, do research and direct volunteers.

In general I consider the US model to be a good one. US blogs don’t cover Canadian affairs in detail or with a lot of partisan vigor. If the US model is applicable then the fact that the Conservative blogosphere is currently bigger in Canada is something that will change over time and with the ascenscion of Harper to the Prime Minister’s office. There will be a few big winners and a standard geometric curve in terms of readership - a few blogs will make it to the bigtime and most will stay small players, getting the occasional big hit when one of the larger blogs links to them.

On the left it is quite likely that some of the big winners will include the first blogs to convert to a diary format and manage to form a self sustaining community around them.

I wonder if Canadians are as politically movitated as their US counterparts the blog world. Where do we compare in terms of the blog structure to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other english speaking countries?

More observations on political blogs at Tilting at Windmills.
From the US National Journal: The Rise of Blogs