Sunday, July 23, 2006

Blogged Bloggers

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a big new study about blogging.

The bad news: Twelve million Americans (8 percent of Internet users) have blogs and 57 million (39 percent of Internet users) read the damn things. The main subject of 37 percent of blogs are a given blogger’s “life and experiences.” Fifty-two percent of bloggers are seeking to “express” themselves “creatively.”

The good news: Only 11 percent of blogs focus on “politics and government.”—


More details:


These are some of the key findings in a new report issued by the Pew Internet Project titled "Bloggers":

54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.

54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.

Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.

76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others.

64% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.

When asked to choose one main subject, 37% of bloggers say that the primary topic of their blog is "my life and experiences."

Other topics ran distantly behind:

11% of bloggers focus on politics and government; 7% focus on entertainment; 6% focus on sports; 5% focus on general news and current events; 5% focus on business; 4% on technology; 2% on religion, spirituality or faith; and additional smaller groups who focus on a specific hobby, a health problem or illness, or other topics.

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