Heh, sucked in -- I'm not talking about visitors and page views, but about blogging habits and beliefs. Here's a study that crikey.com.au got from the Pew Internet Project (US) and that I got from them, interleaved with meme-type answers to see how typical I am.
8% of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog
Hmm ... I keep two and contribute to a third. Overkill, I think.
39% of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs
Rabidly, and to the detriment of other things, like housework.
60% of bloggers are white (compared with 74% of all internet users); 11% are African American (compared with 9% of internet users); 19% are English-speaking Hispanic (compared with 11%); 10% identify as some other race (compared with 6%)
Yep, Anglo-Celtic white bread through and through.
54% of bloggers are male
I'm in the 46%. That's a heartening figure, though; I would have expected it to be lower.
54% of bloggers are under the age of 30; 30% are between 30 and 50 years old; 14% of bloggers fall in the 50 to 64 age group; 2% are 65 or older
Hmm, in the 14%.
51% of bloggers reside in suburban areas
Yep.
46% blog under their own name
At my other blog, yes.
54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere
Sigh, in the minority again.
34% of bloggers consider their blog a form of journalism; 65% of bloggers do not
With the majority here. I think of it (at least the way I do it) as a form of communication, a form of meditation, a form of mental/writerly exercise, and a form of play. But I think that for bloggers to aspire to the condition of journalism shows a lack of imagination. It's a shocking waste of the medium and its potential.
57% of bloggers include links to original sources either “sometimes” or “often”.
Often -- I do believe it's usually a breach of copyright not to.
56% of bloggers spend extra time trying to verify facts they want to include in a post either “sometimes” or “often”.
Always. Extensive academic training means I think God will strike me dead if I don't fact-check.
79% of bloggers have a broadband connection at home (compared with 62% of all internet users)
Yep -- the phone bill is now about a third of what it used to be.
84% of bloggers go online daily
Yes, it's like caffeine. If I go without, I start to twitch.
95% of bloggers get news from the internet and 71% say they do so on a typical day.
Not all my news - a typical day also includes radio, TV and papers.
55% of bloggers get news from email newsletters or list-servs and 34% do so on a typical day (compared with 48% of broadband users)
Yep. Crikey, New Matilda, Age, NY Times, Washington Post.
15% of bloggers report money as a reason for their blog-keeping, and just 7% call making money a major reason
Hahahahahahaha ... I am losing money, by blogging when I should be working.
13% of bloggers have more than 100 hits a day, though a handful in this group has much larger traffic level.
Only on a good day.
87% of bloggers allow comments on their blog.
'A blog without comments isn't a blog, it's a website.' I'd link to the original source if I could remember who said it.
9% of bloggers have had their blog mentioned by the news media.
Yep.
35% believe that their readers are mostly people they have never met.
Maybe not in person, but I think my regular readers (all three of them) know me much better than many of the people I 'know' socially.
5 comments:
I already talk to the cat and if I didn't have blogs, I'd be talking to the walls.
One of the things I find disturbing about blogging is that when you do get to meet your fellow bloggers, there's an odd familiarity which has nothing to do with the way they look. And they know all your best stories.
How's the article going?
Article, moi?
It's a sad story, and one I can't really tell. But it didn't work out -- more my fault than anyone else's.
Bugger. Oh well, I enjoyed the review in Monthly. You really do write well.
God WILL strike you dead if you don't attribute your sources properly...
Actually, when I first started in the public 'service', I kept referencing my sources (something that seems rather hilarious now).
When told to stop, I kept a secret version of all my documents with the footnotes in, convinced that it was a trick and that I would interrogated and punished for plagiarism in some kind of star court.
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