The line between a blog and a mainstream media site are blurring, but one thing’s for certain; blogs are here to stay. So how are bloggers making cash and how much are they making?

According to data from Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere, there were 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 and 184 million worldwide in 2008.

Technorati states that 900,000 blog posts are made every 24 hours based on its own data.

Other key findings:

- 25% of bloggers use three or more means of advertising.
- 66% of bloggers running advertising have contextual ads
- 33% use affiliate advertising on their blog
- 20% negotiated directly with advertisers
- 10% sell advertising through a blog ad network
- The top 10 percent of respondents earned an average of $19,000 annually

While 50%+ of US, European and Asian blogs carry advertising, the median annual revenue is quite low - $120 - $200, but the mean is quite high -$6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those blogs with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month. This is somewhat skewed by the top 1% of bloggers who earn $200k+. Even at the median, Technorati states the overall CPM is on par with larger publishers.

Companies are certainly learning the value of evangealism via blogs with a third of bloggers having been approached to be brand advocates and 80% of bloggers posting brand or product reviews. Among the 48% of bloggers who do not run advertising on their site, the most common reason is lack of interest.

You can read more of the Techonorati 2008 State of the Blogosphere report here.