Future of American Atheism: The Atheist Blogosphere

What does the future hold for atheism in the United States? Will momentum build until even our harshest critics will acknowledge the reality of the atheist movement, or might our growing influence wane and further delay the goal of atheist equality? I'm no fortune teller, but I'll gladly speculate on what we might see over the next few years. This post focuses on the future of American atheism with regard to the atheist blogosphere.

I expect that the atheist presence on the Internet will continue to grow over the next few years but that the rate of growth will be slower than what we have witnessed over the past couple of years. We are well past the point where even the most dedicated consumer of atheist blogs has the time to keep up with all of them. While the explosive growth in the atheist blogosphere has been good for us, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sift the truly outstanding blogs from the rest. This has important implications for what the next few years may hold.

Some other predictions:

• The broad pool of readers of atheist blogs will continue to increase but at a slower rate than many bloggers would hope.
  
• Atheist bloggers will find increasing specialization necessary, focusing on narrower sectors of the atheist domain in order to attract readers.
  
• Consolidation will be an important trend in that many individual atheist blogs will be replaced by team blogs as bloggers find that they must pool resources to maintain a competitive edge.
• Someone with the technical know-how will finally create what we desperately need - a comprehensive but useful online directory of all atheist blogs, making it easier for readers to find those that best fit their interests.
  

For more, see my recent post, Free Market Atheism.

Tags: atheism, atheist movement, equality, atheist blogs