for W3c validation

Here’s some stats for you to think about:

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
• More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
• Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
• 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• 9% of internet users say they have created blogs .
• 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
• over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
• 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
• 51% of blog readers shop online .
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .

The fact that 51% of blog readers shop online and that 89% of companies surveyed say that blogging will play a larger importance in their business than today are the two reason that jump out at me as reasons why businesses should be blogging.