While personal blogs continue to sprout up more frequently than technology executives at Tyson’s Silver Diner, the number of bloggers who have been able to transform the hobby into a viable and sustainable business remains minuscule.

But one blogger and former technology journalist has broken through to build arguably one of the nation’s two most influential and insightful technology blogs: Om Malik.

The good news for the tens of thousands of bloggers out there who dream of leaving their 9 to 5 job and live solely off of their blog is that, as Om has shown, it can be done. GigaOm currently boasts venture investors, a growing staff, and hundreds of thousands of devoted readers. The bad news for those wishing to emulate Om’s success - as a recent USA Today profile points out - is that his 9 to 5 job these days is 9am to 5am.

Malik cut his journalistic teeth with stints covering the technology beat at Forbes.com, Red Herring and Business 2.0; experience he has used to deliver insight that extends well beyond breaking news about the products, people and companies moving the needle in the tech sector. Instead, Malik challenges readers to rethink how they consume technology news with biting analysis and angles that mainstream media often overlook.

Throughout GigaOm’s ascendancy from hobby to a business that now includes a family of blogs that complement the main site, Om remains one of the genuine nice guys in the industry. In coming to know him over the past few years, Om’s 23 hour work day never prevents him from responding to as many readers as possible. And while many bloggers shoot first and ask questions later, Om’s blog has become such a trusted news source because he tirelessly researches each post topic, is careful not to pass along unconfirmed gossip, and maintains a division of Church and State by not investing in companies he writes about.

And while Om spends the majority of his time at his home base in California, executives and professionals in the DC area have a truly rare opportunity to see and hear from Om as one of the featured speakers at the upcoming ExecutiveBiz The New New Internet Conference on November 1st. Anyone who has read Om’s blog will certainly look forward to his take on how Web 2.0 is playing out in the DC area for government and business. And for those who have not been exposed to the blog, the speaking slot on November 1st is the perfect time to get acquainted with the man behind it.

Last week, San Francisco hosted the fourth annual Web 2.0 Summit. The event wrapped up on Friday and with over 100 featured speakers, from Tim O’Reilly to ebay CEO Meg Whitman, there was a lot of related news coverage. For a full report on what’s become a yearly west coast tradition, visit the news and coverage section on the event website.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made waves when he announced that Microsoft plans to purchase 20 web companies a year for the next five years, pledging to spend between $50 million and $1 billion on each of the prospective companies.

“Those will be good acquisitions, and they’re important to us,” Ballmer said. “And they’re of strategic importance.”

Open source developers may also be on the table, according to Ballmer. “We will buy smaller companies. We will buy smaller companies that make some use of open source software,” he said, according to CNET. “We don’t want to discourage people who would talk with us just because they do some open source.” Ballmer even went so far as to offered his email address for any interested developers looking to sell.

Here’s a clip of the Ballmer interview from the Web 2.0 Summit:

Click To Play

Ted Leonsis and Om Malik, featured speakers at the summit, will also be at the New New Internet’s Web 2.0 event, this November 1st. While San Francisco’s Web 2.0 Summit was mainly focused on the technology behind many of the popular web 2.0 applications, the New New Internet’s conference will focus on the implication for business and government.

Leonsis, Vice Chairman of AOL, will be the featured morning keynote while Malik, founder and Chief Blogger of GigaOm, will be the featured afternoon keynote speaker. Like the Web 2.0 Summit event, the November 1st event will host a number of speakers and exhibitors who are at the forefront of the web.

If you missed the event in San Francisco, and will be on the east coast on November 1st, it’s not too late to register for this region’s major annual web conference.

Other interesting notes from the Web 2.0 Summit:

News Corp’s Robert Murdoch calls Google both a “threat and a friend” and Facebook “cool, but not that cool.”

Facebook CEO predicts he’ll double his workforce over the next year alone;

AT&T plans to participate in a government auction of the 700-megahertz band that will be available after broadcast television networks switch to digital from analog in 2009.

A close friend of mine manages a hedge fund in New York, and when we chat during heady stock market runs I’ll remark how well things must be going for him.

“Honesty, Brian, it really doesn’t matter whether stocks are going up or down – as long as they are moving.”

“Crunch” is traditionally not a word one likes to see associated with economic trends, and observing the current global credit squeeze and spiraling mortgage industry shakedown, it led me to wonder if there is a segment of the local business community that might experience any possible benefit – even unintended – from the volatility.

On the surface, there are few winners. Consumers – whether they are in the market to buy or sell property – come up on the short end with depressed real estate prices and higher mortgage rates. Businesses involved in or planning highly leveraged acquisitions based on cheap credit must now re-evaluate the financial viability of these transactions, not to mention companies that will simply find it harder to get the credit they need to grow or sustain the business.

The Washington Post Business Section has dedicated serious ink the past week to every facet of the story – from its impact on credit-worthy home buyers to whether or not the buyout craze will come unhinged. Throughout all of their coverage, not even the faintest of silver linings is offered.

Undaunted, I continued to search for contrarian perspectives and came across a post by frequent GigaOM blogger Kevin Kelleher. GigaOm is the well-read and respected technology industry blog run by Om Malik (who is a featured speaker at the upcoming ExecutiveBiz Web 2.0 for Business Conference that will take place in Washington, DC on November 1st).

Kelleher postulates that while the massive corporate buyouts that depend so heavily on cheap credit are not helped by the credit crunch, technology companies sitting on piles of cash could in fact be well positioned to buy highly leveraged targets in the coming months. While Kelleher spoke in national terms, there are a number of DC-area companies with strong cash positions that could be tempted to use some of this cash for strategic acquisitions.

It will be interesting to track how the tight credit markets impact the local acquisition climate through the remainder of the year and if, as Kelleher hypothesizes, we might see an uptick in cash-heavy transactions by technology companies with the capacity to do so. I’d also like to hear from readers if there are any other elements of the local economy that could somehow benefit from the current volatility and why.