All over the blogosphere for the last couple of days I’ve seen the same thing over and over again. Bloggers are upset about a Philadelphia decree to start charging bloggers $300 for the privilege of running their online business. Does this mean that there will be fewer blog start ups in Philadelphia?

Of course, cities have been requiring business licenses for a long time. It’s only now that business licenses for online businesses have become news. And for the record, Philadelphia isn’t the only city requiring licenses for online businesses. Boston, L.A. and the District of Columbia do as well.

But it’s unclear whether the Philadelphia business license would apply to small businesses who use a blog to promote their off line business. What is clear is that if your blog runs ads then it qualifies as a business. And that $300, for clarification, is a one-time fee – not an annual tax. Does that make a difference?

I don’t think the license fee will slow down the number of blog start ups. It’s a relatively small fee and even a modestly profitable blog can earn that back within a year. Since the licensing requirement is a lifetime fee, that makes it pretty darn affordable. There is just one thing that you should consider when you start to do business online – just as you would when starting your off line business. Make sure you meet all your legal requirements. Otherwise, you could land in hot water.

Matt McGee does it again.

Just when you thought everyone you know would be starting a blog soon, statistics show otherwise. Only 1/3 of U.S. companies have a blog. And only 43% will have one by 2010. These estimates are from a report by eMarketer.

But even more startling are the growth of business blogs in the past five years and Matt McGee’s bold, bold statement:

I won’t provide consultation services to companies that don’t blog.

That’s a pretty strong statement. If a small business Internet marketing consultant won’t provide consulting services to businesses that don’t blog, doesn’t that say something about how important these little marketing tools are? It should.

In 2007 only 16% of U.S. businesses had a blog. Now, just three years later, a little more than twice that many do. But it makes you wonder why more businesses aren’t blogging when the benefits are so clear. There is probably no online marketing tool that delivers as much targeted search traffic as fast and that can achieve greater search engine rankings so well. But I guess not everyone knows that.