After being pounded in the blogging stakes by rampant female blogging last year, men have flocked back to the blogosphere in increasing numbers, safe in the knowledge that once more, the Pew Internet and American Life Project would restore what many of us already knew, that 57% of bloggers are male.
Pew is back after taking a pounding with some bizarre results based on a small number of random observations on a couple of free blogging services last year with some figures that may actually reflect something closer to the truth this year.
The key findings:
– 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. This represents more than 8 million people, or 8 millions blogs asuming 1 blog per person. Significantly higher than the regular 5 million figure being quoted in the press lately, and it should be noted that this is 8 million blogs in the US ONLY. Add the rest of the world, and the figure must exceed 10 million at least by now.
– 27% of US internet users say they read blogs, a 58% jump from February 04, meaning an approximate 32 million Americans were blog readers.
– 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online. There is lots of unmet growth in the RSS market to be filled.
– Bizarrely only 38% of US internet users know what a blog is. (perhaps the other 72% only use email)
On Bloggers
Blog creators are more likely to be:
– Men: 57% are male
– Young: 48% are under age 30 (we’d note this is their figures: if young is under 30, and 48% are under, wouldn’t 52% of bloggers be old at 30 and above and in the majority??)
– Broadband users: 70% have broadband at home
– Internet veterans: 82% have been online for six years or more
– Relatively well off financially: 42% live in householdsearning over $50,000
A pinch of salt though, the survey was based on 1,324 internet users.
