What is Blogging worth?

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I have been interested recently by the number of blogging events that are held globally each year and wonder what it is worth dollarwise and also very importantly - what is the accumulated cost and profit earned, if any, from holding these events?

Where am I going with this line of inquiry? Well, can you remember what we did before the dot com bubble burst? We used forums and I cannot recall a plethora of forum events and organisations worrying about this or that and a thing maybe called DotCom 1.0 or Web 1.0

Nowadays all I hear about is:
Mash-Ups, BarCamps, Rootcamps, Web 2.0 this or Web2007 that, Reboots, Identity Mash-ups and one called BloggerCon (huh?) etc etc.

All of these wherever they are held have a cost attached that needs to be satisfied. So where does the money come from and where does it go?

All the events throughout the year in USA and the rest of the world happen only due to the availability of one vital ingredient - money. Where does it all come from? I don’t know and am not at all interested if a high profile uberguru blogger digs deep and also gets it all back plus some, (good luck to them), no, I am interested in why there are so many events. How is the support for all the events drummed up? Who attends, where do the come from and why do they attend so many events that have been spun off from such a simple thing as blogging?

Is each event a sellout? Are these events attended by a 1000 strong audience or are they intended for a more intimate audience of say 100 maximum? I am intrigued by this as I think it is high time Reading, Berkshire, England, UNITED KINGDOM had a BarCamp or a BloogerThon so that I can go to it too. Also, why are all the blogging events in UK always held at locations I can only get to if I take annual leave?!

Before blogging the marketing industry used to hold their own junkets right? Am I? OK I take that as a yes. So have all the marketing people in the world now adopted blogging as their realm for earning a dollar? Have they transitioned the traditional marketing event into a blogmarketing requirement? Or are marketers in the main, still holding the traditional line when it comes to clients and doing their PR, branding and marketing?

What is Blogging worth?