Demosophia

Blog Growth

A new study by the folks at Pew Internet & American Life Project have just released a study on growth in blog usage over the last year. There were a few interesting subtleties in growth in blog readership.

Without getting too deeply into the tea-reading leaves, there are a couple stats worth noting:

Blog readership increased from 17% of internet users to 27% in just 9 months - an increase of some 58%.  Meanwhile, the number of blog authors increased from 3% in July 2002 to 5% at the beginning of 2004 to 7% by late November of 2004.  Over the same time period that readership increased by 58%, the number of bloggers increased by 40%.

I find it intensely interesting that the number of readers grew 18% faster than the number of authors.  I imagine that there are more than a few of the MSM outlets that would be quite happy to have such increases in circulation.

Another interesting point is that the number of people who have left comments was at 12%.  If we assume that those who blog also comment (not an entirely unreasonable simplification), then we find that more people write blogs and comment than only comment.  But, it does lend some credence to the notion that comments are a way to boost readership to some extent.

Another study (cited in this article) from November 2004 estimated that by the end of 2004, there would be some 10 million blogs created, the vast majority of which are dead.  Others note that only about 1 million blogs are updated regularly.  Or, in other words, just about one percent of internet users keep regularly updated blogs.

Compare the conclusions drawn in the last two paragraphs with points number 4 and 5 in this post.

(Simultaneously launched by Bravo Romeo Delta from Demosophia, The Jawa Herald Sun, & Anticipatory Retaliation)

Posted by Bravo Romeo Delta at January 3, 2005 02:09 PM | TrackBack