Splogs - how false user numbers contribute to the problem

Recently there has been a lot of discussion regarding Splogs, what a blog is, the numbers some companies release and their legitimacy.

For a long time we (industry types) have known that when someone e.g. MySpace, releases numbers that they include a significant number of dead or abandoned accounts. MySpace keeps those accounts active so that they can ‘claim’ them in their quarterly or annual numbers. This makes their service appear larger than they are when in actual fact they are probably 60-80% (bullsh*t). Its a marketing ploy and that is all it is with no real dollar value attached aside from the marketing effect.

There is a secondary effect, this poor behaviour covers up subscriber declines. When services like a ‘MySpace’ tell you their subscriber growth has slowed its distinctly possible that in actuality they are losing subscribers but as subscribers ‘abandon’ their accounts they are kept active and counted by a ‘MySpace’ service. This effectively conceals any declines and as long as someone new signs up a ‘MySpace’ service will continue to appear to grow.

The services that benefit most from this practice are MS Live Spaces, Yahoo 360, MySpace, Blogger, etc as they are the ones with the most to benefit from false subscriber claims.

How does this affect SPLOGGING (spam blogs)?

My theory/belief is these false/failed/abandoned blogs are perfectly positioned for receiving comment spam, and pingback/trackback(link) spam. This in turn helps independant splogs (those that host their own blog site on their own domains) to grow their ranking on search engines through link building. Since these sites are effectively unmanaged there is no one there to delete these spam comments, trackbacks, pingbacks, etc.
I wonder if this chest thumping style of marketing were abandoned through the institution of industry standard guidelines if the number for splogs and their effectiveness would decline.

Definitely this is worth some further thought about what future solutions would help maintain the value and social organisation of the blogosphere.

Do you think I have it half right? I definitely don’t think my theory if right would lead to significant declines but some is still better than none.

Should blogging have a more centralised authentication system e.g. Yahoo’s active keys webmail system?