Seventy-three people visited this blog yesterday. 73. It doesn't seem like a very big or significant number, certainly not compared to megablogs that have tens of thousands of visitors daily. But considering I started in January with one visitor per day, that's pretty impressive to me. It adds up to more people hearing what I have to say than when I worked as a disk jockey in Clare, Michigan in the mid-1980s. Lets just say more cows listened to the farm reports than farmers.

Is it coming to an end already, though? An article by Newsweek's Tony Dokoupil this week suggests that the cacophony of amateur bloggers and videographers cluttering up the Web 2.0 landscape may be quieted by a new wave of authoritative, expert-driven online information sources.

Fueling all this podium worship is the potential for premium audiences—and advertising revenue. "The more trusted an environment, the more you can charge for it," says Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis, a former AOL executive who was previously involved with several Web start-ups. It's also easier to woo advertisers with the promise of controlled content than with hit-and-miss blog blather. "Nobody wants to advertise next to crap," says Andrew Keen, author of "The Cult of the Amateur," a jeremiad against the ills of the unregulated Web.

It's unquestionably loud out here in the wild Intarweb, with all the blogs and YouTube videos and podcasts on every subject under the sun. Maybe we could use a few people who really know what they're talking about (and don't worry, I'm one of the authoritative experts - it says so on my "Authoritative Expert" certificate). As I've asked before, what happens to real news gathering and reporting when everyone's a blogger?

Much of the desire for "expert" online sources is driven by money. As Calacanis and Keen correctly observe, advertisers want a more defined list of well-trafficked sites in order to get reliable sources of consumer eyeballs. So the rise of sites like Knol and Mahalo - with content edited by professionals with experience in their particular subject - isn't surprising. What's surprising and a bit disheartening is how quick the proponents of these "authoritative" sites are to dismiss the millions of other voices that are now part of the virtual conversation, whether they create one blog post or podcast or video a day, or one a month.

Don't get me wrong here. I prefer to get my news from authoritative sources. I read The New York Times' website daily. I enjoy Mark Halperin's "The Page" political blog on Time.com. I have several other "old media" news feeds in my Google Reader list.

But I also enjoy the free-wheeling and at times scatterbrained approach of the "amateurs." Often a personal blogger will highlight a topic I wouldn't have read about otherwise. Sometimes they have a different point-of-view that I hadn't considered, or which isn't usually covered by the authoritative media. Every now and then a blogger makes me stop long enough to actually think hard about a subject, because it's personal to them in a way that traditional media seldom is. Thinking creates progress, and that's why all the new voices are important.

It's not one or the other, and it's misguided to think all of the amateur voices will go away if faced with more competition from authoritative media sites. We have the tools to easily self-publish our most insightful - and our most banal - opinions. The same tools give professional, expert writers a chance to directly connect, immediately and in a very powerful way, with their audiences. I don't see it as the rise and fall of the amateur, but rather an expansion of an positive, worldwide discussion of issues important to everyone.

Or maybe not everyone, but only 73 people a day.

Photo illustration by Konrad Mostert, Wuppertal, Germany, from sxc.hu

Duncan Riley put offline news publishers on the TechCrunch Deadpool watch today. The stick that prodded him into making this decision was a poll released on February 27th by Zogby International. The poll suggests that 48 percent of Americans are now getting their news from the Internet and that two-thirds are "dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities." I don't disagree with Duncan's deadpool thinking; in fact, I think its been painfully obvious to newspaper and magazine publishers for some time now.

What are we replacing the "traditional media" with? Well, there are online versions of those old-guard media voices, some of which are doing pretty well: CNN and The New York Times are both in the top 30 sites in traffic ranking according to Alexa. Of course, they're squeezed in there among Megarotic and Youporn (and you can enter those yourself, thanks), so apparently we're not just concerned about the presidential election 24 hours a day.

Some say newspapers and magazines have never been more popular, if you include their online readership. I hope that's true. The world needs the type of professional writing, editing and yes, filtering, that the traditional news media have provided for centuries.

Then there's blogging, or social media, or Web 2.0 journalism, or whatever you prefer to call it. I love social media because now there are thousands of voices expressing themselves who we never would have heard a few years ago. Some of them are even worth listening to. But do we want to depend on amateur journalists for all of our news? In a 2005 post, journalist Nicholas Carr referred to "the amorality of Web 2.0," taking note of

"...the limitations and the flaws of the blogosphere - its superficiality, its emphasis on opinion over reporting, its echolalia, its tendency to reinforce rather than challenge ideological extremism and segregation."

That's the "me too" approach to blogging, not only tolerated but encouraged by many blogging tutorials. Create posts about the hot topic of the day - as defined by the top blogs - and you'll gain readers. More readers equals higher potential income. Note that I said "create posts," not "write something original." If we choose to comment on the news, we need to bring something of value - add something to the conversation - and not just parrot what the market leaders have said. We need to do some reporting, some original research. Too many blogs are guilty of nonstop namedropping, pandering and link baiting.

I understand how the system works. You do need to make connections and use the power of the network to get noticed, so I'm not saying never mention Mashable or GigaOM in a post. But make sure you're participating in the conversation and not just nodding your head in agreement.

The mainstream media is guilty of the same sins, of course. They taught the rest of us how to pander and parrot and namedrop. And they bear a significant responsibility for the dissatisfaction the respondents in the Zogby poll expressed with their local media. For years, consolidation, both in print and broadcast media, has gutted the quality of local news coverage. Smaller newspapers have been folded when they didn't add enough to the bottom line and local radio has been largely turned over to 24-hour syndicated programming, leaving community coverage lacking. I'm not putting them on an ivory pedestal.

We can't use that as an excuse, though. If social media/Web 2.0/blogging is sending offline media to the deadpool, we need to consider adopting more of the traditional ethics and standards that the best journalists have demonstrated for generations. There are some outstanding blogger/writer/journalists already, and hopefully many more to follow them down this lightly worn path. Will you be one of them?