Who are all these bloggers anyway? And who reads them?
Technorati is now reporting 48m blogs worldwide. But who writes them? Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki can’t be doing all of it. According to a report in Slate, Pew Internet & American Life Project carried out a telephone survey of bloggers and published the results yesterday.
There is long tail of blogs and they’re not like the top 100 blogs many of us read so avidly. In fact most of them are about cats. (I made that bit up but it could be true.)
Here are some interesting observations from the Slate article:
About half of all American bloggers are men, says Pew. About half are under the age of 30. About half use a pseudonym. About half say creative self-expression or documenting personal experiences is a major reason for blogging. About half think their audience is folks they already know.
It’s interesting to note that whereas 90% of bloggers read blogs, only 39% of the internet audience read blogs, equating to 57m Americans.
The article closes with a predictable, if well-written, ‘get a life’ kicker.
Will the next Pew snapshot find bloggers engaging the outside world in greater numbers instead of cataloging their own? Will teenagers give up navel-gazing when they graduate from MySpace to the greater Web? If all these people really want from the Web is a hobby and to talk to their friends and family, they’d be better off taking pottery lessons and purchasing more cell-phone minutes.
I suspect that people want more from blogging than this. I suspect that many of the long tail bloggers have been bitten by the same thing that bit me when I sold my business: the joy of writing and the pleasure of being read.
Joe wrote:
I am one of those 48m bloggers, but I don’t do it to “express myself”, generate traffic, create revenue, or share my ideas. I do it because I have family in several states… and I don’t especially want to talk to them directly. If they want to know what’s going on with me, they can read my blog. And if I want to hear their latest news I’ll read their blog.
This prevents the “you never call” whine. I say, “then read my blog.” It is basically an open letter to my family. It has pictures, stories, weather updates, what’s little Jimmy been up to lately updates.
To be honest, I don’t care if they read it or not, but it must be working because I never hear complaints from distant aunt Sally or whomever.
You, unlike myself, are a writer and should continue to blog. I read your RSS feed everyday. Good job!
Posted on 20-Jul-06 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
Delaney Kirk wrote:
I started my blog on teaching for the same reason that I started a Teaching Colloquium at my university…I wanted to talk about teaching, share ideas and techniques used, plus have an audience to whine to about those “difficult students!”
Posted on 21-Jul-06 at 2:34 am | Permalink
Lynn Gaertner-Johnst wrote:
I’m in all the other halves: female, over 30, use my real name, try to share useful information, and most of my friends and all of my relatives (except my husband) do NOT read my blog. (My husband has to, as he is in business with me.)
I was surprised to find that much of my audience is outside the U.S. They rarely comment (afraid to make a grammatical error?), but they do send me questions about writing etiquette and rules, along with their thanks. It seems that they read me for information rather than a conversation.
I like your work, Matthew, and I like that you obviously enjoy it.
Posted on 23-Jul-06 at 10:38 pm | Permalink
Bad Language / 50m blogs already. Where will it end? wrote:
[...] Of course, there is a long tail of low traffic sites, as I noted a while back (Who are all these bloggers?) but it really is an interesting phenomenon. [...]
Posted on 11-Aug-06 at 3:12 pm | Permalink
Fully Vetted » Blog Archive » A Dog’s Blog wrote:
[...] I particularly like this cartoon featured on Matthew Stibbe’s blog. He’s discussing why on earth anyone bothers to blog.. Interesting debate, you can join in… [...]
Posted on 13-Aug-06 at 8:58 pm | Permalink
Bret wrote:
Interesting stats, however, I don’t fit most of them. I’m over 40, don’t use a pseudonym, but I am documenting personal experiences. I’m not blogging to be read (been their and do/done that with traditional outlets — book and magazines), I’m blogging to get a few things off my chest (mostly at my second blog brothersinblog.com) and blogging to document my experiences with WordPress and blogging in general. One stat that is missing — bloggers that blog to make money. That was one draw for me. The other draw of blogging — not having an editor.
Posted on 02-Apr-07 at 3:51 pm | Permalink
Websites tagged "echnorati" on Postsaver wrote:
[...] - Who are all these bloggers anyway? And who reads them? saved by ZehSebastiaan2008-09-18 - Social Media Mega Project Wrapup: LinkedIn saved by [...]
Posted on 21-Sep-08 at 12:32 pm | Permalink