US: Part 1: Technorati releases "State of the Blogosphere"

Posted by Lauren Drablier on September 23, 2008 at 8:20 AM

Blogs of the past were considered a tool for amateurs and were casually dismissed by the media industry. Today, everything has changed; blogging has significantly altered the landscape of the news industry. According to the survey, blogs have become a "global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream".

An astounding 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs. They have become a vital part of reporting, "The lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear."

The shift in the attitude towards blogging has been explored in the first part of an annual report published by Technorati, entitled, "State of the Blogosphere." Part I, "Who are the Bloggers?" attempts to unearth and analyze the trends and themes of blogging and bloggers.

Data for the report was collected through a survey of 1.2 million bloggers about the "role of blogging in their lives, the tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs, and how blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially." Technocrati tracked blogs in 81 languages and bloggers responded from 66 countries across 6 continents.

Some of their finds include: there are 77.7 million unique visitors in the United States, 77% of active internet users world wide read blogs (346 million people), and 184 million people worldwide have started a blog.

Some statistics from bloggers in the US; 57% of bloggers are male, 42% are aged 18-34, 26% are single, 56% are employed full time, and 74% are college graduates.

The report stated that "bloggers "have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day". Bloggers also use, on average, at least five different techniques to drive traffic to their blog. "They're using an average of seven publishing tools on their blog and four distinct metrics for measuring success."

Blogs have "have become integral to the media ecosystem." According to Brad Felt, managing director of Foundry Group, "The blog has forever changed the way publishing works --now anyone can be a publisher. The issue is no longer distribution; rather, it's relevance."

Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship also commented on the link between blogs and the media, "Traditional media are using these tools to do better journalism, and are beginning to engage their audiences in the journalism."

As for the future of blogs, Richard MacManus, Founder of ReadWriteWeb, believes that we will be "checking our favorite blog for sports news in the morning, instead of the local paper.

The next four parts of the report, scheduled to be released this week are; "The What and Why of Blogging", "The How of Blogging", "Blogging for Profit", and "Brands Enter the Blogosphere".

Sources: Editor & Publisher, Technorati