Who blogs? Apparently a lot of people according to the new study released by comScore networks. Who reads those blogs? Even more people and the demographics involved are highly sought after by marketers of all levels. With over 50 million U.S. Internet users visiting the blogosphere, that’s a lot of market to aim for.
The study showed that the blogosphere shows no signs of diminishing either. Five hosting services had more than 5 million unique visitors during the first quarter of 2005 and four individual blogs had more than 1 million visitors each.
Blog readers are also significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and connect to the web on high-speed connections and blog readers also visit twice as many web pages as the Internet average.
There were a lot of other facts worth noting in the study. There was a major shift over the last year in dominant blog services. The breakdown of which blog services were used and who the big players are says a lot. Blogspot during the first quarter of 2004, was number two with 7,676 user behind Livejournal’s 8,930 users. During the first quarter of 2005, those tables turned drastically with Blogspot having 19,010 to LiveJournal’s 9,593.
Typepad moved up out of 4th from 2,087 to 7,096 over the top of Xanga, which went from 5,686 to 6,836. Coming in next was AOL Journals, Blogs.com, MSN Spaces, Blogdrive, Greatestjournal and Diaryland, which actually lost over 1,000 users.
Yahoo 360, with it’s journaling capacity didn’t seem to make the top 10 cut but that service is also still in Beta. One popular social network with blogging options is MySpace.com and the study noted that at the time of the steady, there was insufficient data for comparison They did mention though that MySpace blogs, based on later data after the study was completed, would’ve been in the top ten.
Something that wasn’t really accounted for was the proliferation of “Splogs” or spam blogs. They’re sole purpose is to have entries based completely on advertised content. Also, many of the comments on valid blogs are spam as well.
What’s A Blog?
There is some information worth questioning about the study. First, in their definitions section, they didn’t clearly define what a blog is. Sites like Fark and the Drudge Report may not be considered blogs in some cases. The issue comes from what criteria define a blog? Is it just editorialization at some point in the site. If that’s the case, all the traditional media sites would fall into that category. Which goes to the next point of categories.
Categories were divided up based on Politics/News, Hipster, Tech, Women(authored), Media, Personal and Business. When reviewing some of the sites in their categories, one has to wonder whether they were even in the appropriate categories. While the Women(Authored) section has women authored blogs, they would perhaps be best classified as something else. There’s no question Ariana Huffington’s or Michelle Malkin’s blog are written by women but would they be more appropriately placed in the Political/News category?
Demographic Nirvana
Even though there might be some questions about certain methodology issues, the overwhelming numbers show someone is reading blogs, actually millions of someones. Of major importance for this study was the breakdown of blog readers. Their study said that blog visitors are 11% more likely than average Internet users to have incomes more than $75,000 and 30% more likely than the average Internet user to live in households where the head is in the coveted 18-34 age demographic. Then, those blog visitors are 11% more likely to use a broadband connection. This certainly provides some interesting information to mull over.
These numbers are significant but once again, some of those sites they list as blogs could easily be construed as news aggregators with some editorial content, not just straight blogs. It’s obvious this area has great potential for growth and marketing but before much more expansion should or could be done, a definition for a true blog must be worked out and terms like “blog ecosphere” don’t say much for study purposes. A recent study by Feedster of the top 500 blogs was released but many questioned their information and its validity.
What’s next? Well, the Internet world will need to clearly define what a blog is and what it is not. Even though Blogspot has 19,000+ users makes one wonder what percentage of that is splogs or real. How many of those are news aggregators with some editorialization or not even that, maybe just a section for comments on the story? All these will need to be defined, explained and accepted before studies can be both accurate and valid.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
