The real difference between blogging and journalism is on the business side, not the creative. (That's Henry Copeland of Blogads on the left of the picture, taken last year from Dan Bricklin's blog.)

On the creative side, blogs are just as likely to care about journalism, public service, and lies as any other media.

On the business side, however, nearly all bloggers do things backwards.

That is, we look at the content from the writer's point of view. Journalism looks at all content from the reader's point of view.

This is no small point. You can see it clearly in examining the "blog journalism" companies which have found success -- Weblogsinc, Gawker Media, and Paid Content. Jason Calacanis, Nick Denton and Rafat Ali all defined the readers they wanted, created a business model, then hired writers to fulfill the mission.

By contrast I found, at blognashville, that even the most-popular bloggers are mere dilletantes. This is a term Glenn Reynolds applied to himself. Dave Winer, with whom I spent pleasant hours, is also doing his blog on-the-side - his business is RSS.

What this means is that the major media won't take over blogging, but they will crush it in the financial sense. They're a business. Most bloggers aren't in business.

It's so simple I am amazed I didn't think of it before.