I was thinking about all the blogs out there — all 106 million of them — and how there seems to be an in-crowd of powerful “A-listers” and hordes of second- or third-tier authors who, while they may write great content and have even, perhaps, attracted a respectably-sized audience and number of backlinks, they just can’t get admission to this exclusive club of people who are the titans of the blogosphere.

Sometimes blogging can feel like waiting in line, hoping to get into the coolest new nightspot: a limo pulls up, the bouncer opens the ropes to admit the dapper passengers to the club — and everyone else goes back to trying to catch the bouncer’s eye.

From Justin Hall, the oft-cited “pioneer blogger”, to Engadget (ranked #1 in popularity on Technorati, as of this writing) or the five-person team at Boing Boing (#3), blogs have evolved to range from personal diaries that authors write for themselves (or their following) to monetized niche blogs that are updated several times a day (or even an hour) and can fetch 7 figures a year for the blogger(s) in ad revenue or through affiliate marketing.

The thing I like about blogs is the transparency between blogger and audience that the medium provides: it’s an inexpensive (often free, if you don’t count site hosting for a unique URL) publishing vehicle that allows anyone to be a writer, and allows them to interact with their readers.

So why are blogs (and podcasts and, of course, websites) such valuable tools for marketing? With over a hundred million blogs and a vast audience, what better way to spread the word and, at the same time, get feedback from exactly the people you are trying to reach with your message?

Consider a recent viral marketing campaign, carried out almost exclusively through blogging: JJ Abrams, the co-creator of “Lost”, will be releasing a monster flick in the New Year. I stumbled upon the mysterious trailer for what it tentatively-titled “1-18-08” on Apple.com back in July (and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend it).

I wrote a short piece for an entertainment blog and, on a whim, entitled it “Monstrous Movie”. In it, I stated that, despite all the speculation about the name of the as-yet-to-be-completed film, I’d searched — simply because I thought the name sounded weak — and found a video on YouTube that dispelled rumors that it would be called “Monstrous Movie”.

The next day, I saw that traffic to the blog had surged and my entry was cited and linked on other blogs and in a few forums — all based on that one short entry I’d written. By chance, the title of the blog was a popular search term and my entry was, at the time, in the number 3 position in Google’s search results, right behind 2 YouTube videos.

The point is that, by using viral marketing through fans and blogs, the movie was popular — at it wasn’t even finished filming!

Here’s an interesting read from New York magazine that gives a brief history of… well, the brief history of blogging.