Blogging Survey
[ via Rajesh Jain ] Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed 3,634 blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services to develop a model of blog populations :
Based on this research, Perseus estimates that 4.12 million blogs have been created on these services: Blog-City, BlogSpot, Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger and Xanga.
The most dramatic finding was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days.
Blogs are famed for their linkages, and while 80.8% of active blogs linked to at least one external site from a post on their home page, these links were rarely to traditional news sources.
Blogs are updated much less often than generally thought. Active blogs were updated on average every 14 days. Only 106,579 of the hosted blogs were updated on average at least once a week. Fewer than 50,000 were updated daily.
When you say “blog” most people think of the most popular weblogs, which are often updated multiple times a day and which by definition have tens of thousands of daily readers. These make up the tip of a very deep iceberg: prominently visible, but not characteristic of the iceberg as a whole.
As the Perseus site explains : The analysis does not cover nonhosted blogs – blogs that individuals maintain on their own servers using their own tools (like my own). Such blogs require more work to set up and will be characteristically different than those blogs created using hosting services.
But the survey still throws up some surprising results, don’t you think?
I, for one, was encouraged to note that the median update frequency for blogs was 14 days. Considering that, my own average of about one post a week is not so bad. 🙂
Another notable finding was the sheer number of blogs out there. At the rate they are going, it cannot be denied that blogs are a force to reckon with, as far as Internet 2.0 is concerned.
Hmmmm,I’m not that surprised by the findings, as I find it almost surprising that so many individuals would actually have the time to keep updating their blogs. Its like the homepage bandwagon mania. Everyone got onto it but then soon ran out of steam.Either it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain (content-wise) or too time consuming (I assume most had an office and social life too)A blog is a powerful tool no doubt, but the power is generated only when you are serious about using it as a tool.Here’s hoping that I won’t run out of steam!
There is another comprehensive survey here if you are interested…http://www.blogsearchengine.com/blog/index.php?p=92My own experience is that I have been blogging for 6-7 months now and on an average I post around 3 times a week. And I mantain 2 Blogs. Have installed a total of 5 Blogs (including for friends) which are updated on a similar rate. And I know many people who Blog many a times a day. So its not that bad… :)Cheers!
would it be fair to say that the frequency of addition to the blog does depend on the theme of the content in it ? your site has a interesting and varied collection of topics so you have a large reservoir of latent content.it is worth remarking that you have kept at it diligently.i have not visited any other blog,for that matter did not even know what that word meant.going by the number of blogs in various states of existence, i dont think i could keep up even with all the ones of high quality.you drew me into it and i am happy for this experience. i would appreciate if you could point me to any website which would explain the historical context for the emergence of such sites and their proliferation besides the motivation for those who maintain it and those who visit these sites.
* Editor’s Reply *Anand, I am in fact planning to write a detailed feature on blogging, why people blog, their history, etc. So you should soon find answers to your questions on the blog itself. For now, Rebecca Blood’s essay is the best I have found on the history of blogs :http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html