SixApart has raised $12 Million in a third round of funding for use in “new products, international expansion and network growth. 

They are particularly interesting in expanding blogging to include more older users, office workers, and international users, especially corporate users in China.  (According to one study, 52% of Chinese office workers write Internet blogs.)

With all of these efforts to expand the adoption of blogging and social networks, could they become as ubiquitious as email?   Users every day compose content in the form of emails that might be better published in a more shareable space, so it doesn’t seem impossible. 

The interesting thing about blogs versus email is that they are so much more amenable to tagging, aggregation, linking, sharing, advertising, and so forth.  (Putting ads next to email is creepy, putting a relevant ad feed next to a blog is quite natural.)  A shift from email to blogging is more technically and socially significant than it might first appear.