Is BoingBoing the Next Great Media Brand?

I am definitely a fan of BoingBoing, the Weblog run by a small group of very smart and very clever writers. But I'm starting to see the brand pop up in some pretty interesting places. To begin with, they seemed to be the best information source as the Sony RootKit issue began to billow and spread. Today, I see them mentioned in the AdFreak blog as being the source for story about CitiBank's security problem. The other day, on the NPR program The World, they were brought up as being a site that is specifically blocked by the government of the UAE.

The Alexa graph shows they are beginning to edge into the level of reach currently enjoyed by WIRED, which is probably the closest established media player comparison. This is another WOM thing though: BB has not (to my mind) done any self promotion. Only good, insightful and fun writing.

Make that "good, insightful, fun and fast writing". Not long ago, I was talking with a reporter who bemoaned his lot in life: he'd be working away at a story, getting editor approval, going through the publishing process, only to glance at BB and see that the story had already been covered.