Memes Shape the BlogosphereThe science of memetics – the scientific and systematic study of memes and their spread – is not yet quite considered a science. People will admit that memes are a key factor in cultural evolution, but they are too difficult to track, too unpredictable to study closely. Unless we "one day discover a striking identity between brain structures storing the same information, allowing us to identify memes syntactically" (Dennett 354), there would seem to be little hope for a science of memetic. How can we explore and apply memetics to culture if we cannot isolate and study the memes themselves, as well as their behaviors and effects? While the movement and influence of memes across culture as a whole may be impossible to analyze using a precise methodology, the movement and influence of memes across culture as a whole are perhaps impossible to analyze using a precise methodology. Propagation on the Internet – particularly in what we call the “blogosphere” – is easier to follow. Therefore, it is also much easier to highlight how memes have driven the evolution of the "blogosphere" and, indeed, blogs and the Internet itself. Richard Dawkins, to whom the term "meme" is credited, defines it as: ...a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation... Just as genes spread through the gene pool by jumping from one body to another. via sperm or eggs, memes therefore spread through the meme pool by jumping from brain to brain via a process that, broadly speaking, can be called imitation (Dennett 344-5). Since the blogosphere can be defined as the Internet space populated by blogs, memes travel through it not from brain to brain, but from page to page, leaving a trail that can be monitored and analyzed. Memes have been a major part of the blogging world since at least 2001, when "Best Meme" first appeared as a category in The Bloggies, the annual Oscars of blogging. The winner in the “Best Meme” category that year was “A Day Without Blogs,” which suggested that every December 1, people use their blogs to link to information and resources about AIDS, in memory of those who died. “A Day Without Blogs” actually started with just fifty blogs in 1999, but by 2001, more than 1,000 bloggers had participated (Link and Think, 2003). The success of “A Day Without Blogging” was one of the first demonstrations of the power and reach of the blogging community. The success of the project helped bring crucial attention to a serious issue and mobilized many casual internet users to donate time and money to the cause..