Sunday, October 08, 2006

A WHOLE LOT OF BLOGS


Wow. When we started doing this, I had no idea just how saturated the blogosphere was. There are an astounding number of blogs out there -- and "astounding" is an understatement.

In April of 2005, the web survey group Perseus estimated the number to be 31.6 million, and predicted that figure would grow to over 53 million by the end of the year.

That represents the number of blogs actually created. The survey doesn't track the number of active blogs, which could take away from the estimate significantly. For example, Perseus's last survey in 2003 found 66 percent of blogs to be inactive.

More figures from the 2005 survey: over 68 percent of the bloggers were female, and only 5.8 percent of all bloggers were age 30 and over.

Who reads all these blogs? According to analysis done in 2005 by comScore Networks, 50 million Internet users in the U.S. navigated to blog sites in the first quarter of that year. Their research also found blog readers more likely to live in higher-income households, have high-speed Internet connections, shop online and be younger than the average Internet user.

So there you have it -- some interesting information and some validation, at least for me, that yes, there are an awful lot of bloggers out there, and a lot of people who are reading blogs.

But if you look closely at the numbers -- about 53 million blogs and 50 million readers -- that's roughly ONE reader per blog.

News Mom V.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One reader per blog? Thankfully, not on this one! Thanks to all our readers, especially the new ones. Please spread the word!

Leo said...

I have had this exact same eye-opening since I started blogging. I really had no idea. I have been interested in finding the statistics. Now I don't have to because you did it for me. Yay. Thanks! Also- love your new links to the side there. Fun!