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Over the past two weeks, Technorati, the leading blog search engine, has been publishing parts from its somewhat annual “State of the Blogosphere” – the results of a survey of over one thousand random bloggers from across the internet which aims to find out exactly who bloggers are and what drives them to blog.

While some of the results of this survey could be inferred by nothing more than a rudimentary grasp on internet culture (such as the number of blogs increasing exponentially over the past couple of years), there were other statistics which any blogger, professional or otherwise, should take note of if they hope to refine their craft or more effectively engage their audience.

For example, even though there are essentially no barriers to entry for bloggers, other than perhaps the motivation to actually start a blog and actively maintain it, blogging seems to be a male-dominated affair. Nearly 2/3 of bloggers in the US are male and this proportion increases for Europe and Asia bloggers.

Note: For any of the following charts to work, you need Adobe Flash!

Another surprising finding from the survey was the media consumption among adult bloggers as compared to the regular population. While the average American adult spends an average of 24 hours watching television each week (a crazy stat in and of itself), the average blogger only watches 8.

However, it appears that bloggers have merely substituted TV for internet – with bloggers spending an average of 26 hours on the internet as compared to the adult average of 14.

A final, interesting conclusion from the survey was the detailed demographics of bloggers from around the world. Globally, over 65% of bloggers have at least a college level education and more than half have some form of advertising on their blog.

Also, it seems Asian bloggers are generally much younger and twice as likely to be single then their North American and European counterparts – I still have yet to figure out a reason for that one.

For a comprehensive run-down of the report stats as well as some interesting insights from renowned bloggers, you owe it to yourself to check out the full report.

2 Responses to “State of the Blogosphere”

1. Carey says:

   October 7, 2008 at 10:24 am

   Great summary Chris.

   The blogosphere is such a strange, young, diverse little organism, it will very interesting to watch its evolution over the next couple of years.
2. Megan says:

   October 8, 2008 at 9:07 am

   It surprises me sometimes when I talk to people about blogs and encourage them to get involved in blogging that there are still some out there who are oblivious to what a blog is and how it can be so beneficial for life and business. I am personally looking forward to everyone catching up while the blogosphere continues to change. Should be interesting.