[Note: These opinions are Paul's not Kevin's.]

I have scanned across the blogosphere and seen that everyone is getting nailed with Nick Berg traffic. People are reporting as much as 10X regular traffic. It is even eclipsing the traffic at the start of the Iraq war for many. I'm typing this off-line because I can't even get to the MT window on Wizbang! James Joyner mentioned he had to cut off comments to a post because "passer-bys" were posting insipid comments. That got me thinking...

When I originally put the Nick Berg video on one of my severs, it was as a service to the relatively small group of regular Wizbang! readers as well as the "extended readership." Also, I hoped it would expand both groups in the long term. I had no idea.

Seeing a mountain of trackbacks was rewarding as obviously Kevin's site was getting recognition. But then Google happened. I'll admit the search engines picked it up faster than I anticipated. My first instinct was to delink the video. But then it hit me. Everyone of these people that find "us" via google are new blogosphereonians. (surprise, my spell checker did not know that word) This is why we are here. We can do what the big guys can't.

If the blogosphere is to ever obtain the status so many people want it to obtain, it is events like this that will propel us there.*

I know many of you look at the traffic as a mixed blessing. I've seen more than one person say they don't want to see their bandwidth bill this month. And I know the yahoos that are only here for the blood are annoying. But in that mix are a whole bunch of people who might not have known what a blog was yesterday but might be a major player in the blogosphere next year. Certainly, there is a mountain of new readers in the mix.

So what am I doing to help it?

After my initial thought about delinking the video because google found it, I realized that now as not the time to shut the door. Instead I'm working to put it on at least one more server maybe two. Yeah, the traffic will be enormous but the long term pay out is too.

This post started out as an observation that this was a landmark event for the blogosphere. Then it became somewhat of a peptalk for some of the smaller guys dreading their bills, now I'm going to evolve it again...

For those of you that have the ability to host it, I'd urge you to consider it. Perhaps you thought is was too ghoulish or maybe you did not want the bill. Both reasons are valid. (as well as the other 10,000 out there) But consider my point... This is an opportunity. The blogosphere got a jump start on Sept. 11, 2001. It got a kick in the pants during the Iraq war. This is an incredible opportune to advance it again. It is introducing thousands of new people to blogs. The more we can serve an informational need the larger we become. By diversifying the hosting, we better serve that need.

If you host it -even if only for a few hours- you are helping the blogosphere provide more information than the big media is. Think about it.

If you decided you want to host it but don't have a copy of the video and you don't want to wait the 3 hours for it to download, send me mail and I'll give you a private link to one of my servers. paul -at- wizbangblog dot com.

Thanks

*BTW- Above I said, "If the blogosphere is to ever obtain the status so many people want it to obtain it is events like this that will propel us there." Obviously I did not mean trading on the ghoulish deaths of innocents. I meant taking advantage of when we can provide information or a service that other media can't.