Dave Sifry, head honcho at Technorati, the blog search engine, has given us another State of the Blogosphere assessment. Essentially he says:

* The blogosphere is now 100 times larger than it was 3 years ago.

* The blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days.

* 175,000 blogs are created each day — two every second.

* 70 pc of pings that Technorati gets are from spam blogs.

* Daily posting levels are at about 1.6 million posts per day (18.6 per second).

* English has retaken the lead as the most spoken language in the blogosphere (Japanese is only 1 pc behind).

All this shows what a great market the Web is for commerce of all sorts. Take the business behind this Website, Syntagma Media. Over on Syntagma, there’s an assessment of its growth in July:

In the month of July Syntagma Media’s basket of key indicators showed an increase of 20.8 pc. Annualized that represent a 250 pc growth rate.

July, of course, is traditionally a slow month for commerce, the exceptions being anything related to travel, tourism and vacations in general. So our true growth is probably somewhere between 300 and 400 pc — a rate that outperforms even Hong Kong in its heyday.

As we often say, blog networks — whether interpreted as geeky outlets for techy types, or online, distributed magazines, like Syntagma — are a good business to be in.

To press this message home, we’re going to be running a new series titled, Making Money Online.

Stay tuned for that one.

Here’s a case-study we’ve looked at before, but it’s a great example of bootstrapping a business:

In just a few years, John Fanuzzi built a national business in the U.S. employing dozens of workers. He did it with no capital and used basic cash-flow techniques to accomplish his dream.

John moved from Philadelphia to Montana in 1980 with everything he owned in the back of a pickup, including his two children of five and two years of age. He was a single father and had a lot on his plate.

He’d done a bit of project managing in the past and was a skilled carpenter. His business idea was to build a company in the unlikely field of massage tables.

Fanuzzi was in this situation because he had injured his back and a doctor said it couldn’t be treated. He was cured, however, by a single visit to a massage therapist. Who says alternative treatments don’t work?

The therapist had told him that it was impossible for him to source a portable massage table for the patients who couldn’t come to him. John was so grateful for his cure, he replied without thinking, “No problem, I’ll make you one.”

He began building it in his driveway, having spent $100 on materials and costs. It was so successful, the news got out and soon orders came flooding in. The problem was, John didn’t have enough to fork out $100 for each table while it was being made. He bridged the gap by asking for a deposit of $100 for each table, then charged $185 for the completed item. Classic bootstrapping methodology. Fanuzzi was in an ideal situation. He had no overheads and lots of customers.

After the move to Montana, he persuaded local teenagers to assemble his products for piece-rate wages and even shipped them on Greyhound buses.

Later, in the 1990s, Golden Ratio Woodworks, based in Emigrant, Montana, became an established and going concern. He was doing $200,000 of business a year. His debts were almost zero and customers paid in cash.

Then it took off in more sophisticated areas of the U.S, like California and the East coast, where buyers thought it “kinda folksy” to order from Montana.

The key to his success, as it is with all bootstrappers, is the management of cash-flow.

Continuing our short series of posts from our U.S. finance correspondent, here he comments on employers adding to your 401k:

If your employer offers a match on the dollars you contribute to your 401k, you really need to take advantage of that. There are very few blanket statements that you can make when it comes to personal finance, but this one comes as close as possible: always contribute at least as much as they’ll match. You’d better have a really good reason if you’re not going to contribute that much.

Matching dollars are free money. They’re a way to double your investment in the 401k — that’s not easy to do. To put some numbers into the mix, consider that the S&P 500 has shown long-term (periods greater than 20 or 30 years) average annual returns in the 10% ballpark for most of its history. However, you had to be a risk-taker to get those returns — leaving all of your money in the stock market, going up and down with investor emotions.

Matching dollars do even better: you earn 100% on the amount they match. What’s more, you aren’t taking market risks to do so. It’s a pretty good deal. If you don’t know whether your employer matches, find out – and contribute enough to get the match.

That may seem an idle question since most people would answer: “In the local shopping mall”. But, if you’re reading The Money Blog, you would probably give a different reply. Here’s our U.S. finance correspondent to give his answer:

What should you do with your idle cash? Let’s say you’re responsible and you’ve accumulated an emergency fund. This is money that you can’t take risk with, but it would be nice to earn something on it, right? Depending on what you want, the world is full of options.

You can always leave it in a checking or savings account. Of course, you won’t earn much. Most brick and mortar banks are still paying almost nothing on deposits. However, the internet bank accounts make it more appealing. HSBC, INGDirect, and Capital One all have competitive rates these days – with no fees or minimum balance requirements. Whatever bank you use, make sure it’s FDIC insured.

You can also use money market funds. These are technically mutual funds that invest in short term issues. The advantage of a money market fund over a bank product is that the interest rate will likely change more rapidly (of course, that’s only an advantage if rates are going up and not down). The disadvantage of a money market is that there’s technically a possibility that you can lose your money if the underlying “money markets” fall apart. Read the fund’s prospectus to see what it invests in, and how you feel about that risk.

With a money market, you can sometimes get a checkbook to access your cash. They don’t like for you to write small checks, so they impose a minimum check size (like $500 per check). With a bank product, you usually link your account to a checking account and move money electronically when you’re ready to spend it. With either type of account, you can make deposits by check or electronically.

Which is better? It depends. Look them both over, compare rates, and figure out what suits your needs.