Who is Blogging?
When you start blogging, you join the ever growing network of bloggers called the blogosphere. According to Technorati.com’s Founder and CEO, Dave Sifry, the number of blogs out there doubles every 6 months. Here are some statistics according to Technorati.com:

• As of April 2006, there were 34.5 million blogs out there.
• Each day, 75,000 blogs are started.
• 19.4 bloggers (55%) are still blogging after 3 months
• 3.9 million bloggers update their blogs at least once per week
• There are 1.2 million blog posts per day, about 50,000 per hour

According to Pew Internet survey in July 2006, 8% of internet users, or about 12 million Americans keep a blog. The vast majority of these bloggers keep personal journals rather than business or journalism blogs.
According to Pew Internet survey in July 2006, 39% of internet users, or about 57 million Americans, read blogs. That’s up considerably from last year’s comScore’s August 2005 survey which found that

50 million U.S. Internet users visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005. That is roughly 30% of all U.S. Internet users and 1 in 6 of the total U.S. population

Demographics are more difficult to come by. Advertiser BlogAds.com has been conducting surveys of blog readers since 2004. In their 2006 study - which shouldn’t be taken as scientific because participants had to select to fill out the survey - they divided the blogosphere into 4 types: political, gossip, mom, and music. Here’s a sample of their findings for political blogs.

The median political blog reader is a 43 year old man with an annual family income of $80,000. He reads 6 blogs a day for 10 hours a week. 39% have post-graduate degrees. 70% have contributed to a campaign. 69% have bought music, 87% have bought books. 58% say blogs are “extremely useful” sources of information. 52% leave comments on other people’s blogs. Just 18% of political blog readers have their own blogs. (As you’ll see, that’s a lot lower than in other blogospheres.) Of these, 53% blog to keep track of their own ideas, 50% to let off steam, 36% to influence public opinion.

You can see the non-segmented results of their 2005 survey here.

Random Posts

• Book Review: Four Steps To Building A Profitable Coaching Practice
• How Web Directories Can Improve Your Search Engine Rank
• Understanding Consumer 2.0 (FOOA 2007)
• How to Create Effective Advertising with AIDA
• Making Trade Show Marketing Work