Blogging is worth it, but in the end the true bloggers will survive. Just throwing up a pic and a link is not blogging. Blogging is about both pics as well as text. As text might not be that interesting for your visitors, it may give that little extra. Good writers know how to get the readers attention and they can send the traffic into the right direction. Actually text is your sales tool - you have to entertain and convince the surfer at the same time.

I agree with some of you that splogs will not survive, however they might be great for a sales boost on the shortterm of course.

Blogs attract a lot of SE traffic (because of the text) and that is why blog traffic is converting so well.

A big concern are those so-called blogs, which give away complete movies (mostly stolen content). They got tons of traffic and only make some bucks by selling advertisement spots, but on the longterm they are ruining the market.