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Sam Whitmore tells Wired News that over the next 12 to 24 months you will probably see big media companies scarf up blogs.

"Look at what happened politically," Whitmore said, when blogs hit the big time during the presidential campaign. "The same thing will happen in business, because people know they don't need to head to branded sites for good information. Bloggers can be trusted to be independent and people will turn to self-published experts for information."

As usual, Sam is dead on right.

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.