Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit links Michael S. Malone’s wildly optimistic, but probably spot-on accurate, predictions of a media future in which blogs rule the world.

It can be argued that most of these bloggers aren’t making much money. But then, they don’t have much overhead either — and they are slowly groping their way toward workable revenue models. Once they do, the venture capital industry is ready to swoop in. With the Huffington Post and the soon-to-be-announced Pajamas Media, we are also seeing the birth of the first larger business structures in the blogosphere — and the first serious interest by major advertisers. That will be the key: when General Motors takes out an ad on Instapundit, the blogosphere will ignite so fast that it will make the dot-com buildup seem like slow motion…

Let me make a prediction. Five years from now, the blogosphere will have developed into a powerful economic engine that has all but driven newspapers into oblivion, has morphed (thanks to cell phone cameras) into a video medium that challenges television news, and has created a whole new group of major companies and media superstars. Billions of dollars will be made by those prescient enough to either get on board or invest in these companies. At this point, the industry will then undergo its first shakeout, with the loss of perhaps several million blogs — though the overall industry will continue to grow at a steady pace.