Are family blogs a new trend?

I was looking at random blogs here on blogger via hitting the "next blog" button again and again out of boredom and came across a handful of family blogs.  I have never seen anything of the sort before and while clicking through for about five minutes I saw at least four blogs about families.  I thought it was the strangest thing.  These are blogs set up by parents who write posts about their kids and the things that are going on in their homes... I don't get it.  I can see one justifiable reason which would be to set up a blog about your family just to keep your extended family up-to-speed but to have it wide open for anyone is just odd.

I skimmed a few posts of one of these blogs in particular and the topics included a new haircut, a rash on a daughter's face (with pics), a school play, play-dates, etc.  A different blog was a little more vacation-heavy and talked about trips and the such which I can understand but I couldn't help but immediately think of the show, John and Kate + 8.  I wouldn't be surprised if these families followed the series feeling like they deserved a similar spotlight and fired up a blog to document themselves for the world to see.  I guess I just don't understand the point of it.  I especially wouldn't want to do it if I was the parent and if I had young children, it just doesn't seem right.  Am I looking into this too much for how small and pointless it is?  Are family blogs a new trend?  Is it modern and cool to be a family blogger?  Are parents that blog about their kids "with it" or is some self-evaluating in order?