my thoughts on the future of blogging?

Here is my mini-essay in response to the question, What is the future of blogging?

We've already seen traditional blogging platforms (wordpress, expression engine, etc.) moving towards more robust functionality to the point of becoming content management systems. I think we will continue to see people moving to blogs AS their primary website, especially given the ease of use and the ability to easily embed widgets to pull in news/photos/video/podcasts/social media through widgets. I do think many smaller print publications including peer reviewed publications and books will move to a blog as the primary source of publication. More media, more rich content, and a more defined user experience, utilizing tools like location based/gps services (foursquare, googlemaps, etc.).Blogs will be used to create new content feeding into social media like twitter and then also serving as a place to collocate all of the social media content created and distributed by a particular user. A blog which just be one piece of the digital presence and one piece of creating a brand.