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Techmeme is filled with major tech sources covering Microsoft’s Windows 7 debut (TechCrunch, D6 Highlights, WebWare, Engadget, and many more).

But the action is also being covered actively (perhaps even more actively) on Twitter. In the last two minutes, John Battelle, Jason Calacanis, Loic Lemeur and others have tweeted updates, insights and analysis… starting conversations and valuable dialog.

It’s well known that Twitter is as much a short-form of blogging as it is an instant source of news. In fact, one of the first users I followed was @redsoxcast - a user that broadcasts nearly every Red Sox pitch. I pay for MLB.com’s service - but actually prefer following @redsoxcast because it is portable and always accessible.

What I am struck by, however, is that this is the first robust, instant dialog I have followed on Twitter. I have followed one-person updates before (like the Oscars or Red Sox games… but I haven’t yet seen this level of interaction. Of course it’s covering a tech event… but if Twitter can amass this sort of activity across multiple, they will be a major player in news and a major competitor to bloggers.

A Twitter search for “Ballmer” on Twhirl:

My live Twitter feed - notice the updates are all Microsoft and Red Sox

Want celebrity gossip? The online destination of choice is PerezHilton.com - which, according to Perez, boasts larger readership than People Magazine (the perennial #1 print magazine). That success has turned Perez into a star - he has his own MTV and VH1 shows, is seen in celebrity magazines galore and he’s fetching sponsorship deals both personally on on his website.

So you would think that PerezHilton.com would be growing because of all of this. Wrong. Pageviews, uniques and visits are relatively flat (perhaps even down).

Why? Simply put:because blogging doesn’t scale.

As Perez Hilton becomes more of a star, his focus clearly has shifted. There are fewer daily blog posts and, more importantly, fewer ‘meaningful’ blog posts (there is now lots of content about Perez himself). There is only so much time in the day and only so much juicy gossip.

Meanwhile, there are ways to solve this. Blogs like TechCrunch, Valleywag and others are hiring full staffs and publishing content more regularly. In fact, PerezHilton.com is quickly taking a backseat to TMZ - which is using its growing staff to out-pace Perez on all fronts.

Gawker is another great example. Sites like DeadSpin.com have strong traffic in their verticals, but they too become flat over time. Growth then comes from the larger network and increase authorship. Kotaku.com, for instance, is surging and Valleywag.com is growing nicely behind it’s increased authorship.

PerezHilton.com:

The GawkerNetwork:

Top Sites Reach Reach%
gizmodo.com 8,705,071 28.8%
lifehacker.com 5,701,369 18.8%
kotaku.com 4,498,218 14.9%
gawker.com 3,247,225 10.7%
fleshbot.com 2,137,780 7.1%
consumerist.com 1,966,213 6.5%
jalopnik.com 1,758,997 5.8%
defamer.com 1,721,438 5.7%
valleywag.com 1,304,718 4.3%
jezebel.com 1,297,423 4.3%
deadspin.com 1,231,847 4.1%
io9.com 1,154,466 3.8%
wonkette.com 961,723 3.2%
gridskipper.com 471,975 1.6%
idolator.com 319,265 1.1%
gawkershop.com 9,543 < 0.1%
gizmodo.net 8,145 < 0.1%

Smaato is a mobile-advertising company that recently took a 3.5mm investment round.
Engadget is one of the biggest tech toys blogs on the web - often focusing on the mobile world.

The similarities extend to their logo… it isn’t just me right?!

Can web traffic and data determine the likely outcome of the 2008 election primaries? I put each of the major candidates through Quantcast and the results are quite revealing. The charts below are estimated ‘unique users per month’ and it should be on an apples-to-apples basis because none of these candidates are truly web 2.0 / dorky enough to actually ‘Quantify’ their websites.

If you look at both the aggregate numbers and the traffic growth, the results are pretty phenomenal. Mitt Romney, for instance, has seen significant, rapid growth while Hilary Clinton has the largest aggregate numbers - but her traffic is actually declining.

Ron Paul is famous for his web popularity (just read the front page of Digg at any given moment) - and that translates into larger overall numbers than Romney, but his traffic is steadily growing while Mitt’s is surging.

The biggest surprise is Hilary Clinton - clearly she has the biggest brand name, but to have declining traffic during the primary season is an awful indicator!

Mitt Romney

Ron Paul

John McCain

Hilary Clinton

Barack Obama