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According to a recent Synovate/Marketing Daily survey, 8% of Americans currently run their own blog. Can we take it as a progress?
Looking back at the Pew Internet survey (conducted April 2006), 8% of internet users reported having their own blog over a year ago. Somewhat surprising, Synovate’s survey shows no progress in this direction.
Another troubling result found in the Synovate research concerns the effect of blog reading on other media: Only 13% of blog readers say they spend less time with other forms of media (newspapers, television, radio) since they’ve started following blogs. Also - only 15% of blog readers report they read blogs in search for news.

These results contradict other strong indicators published: In a recent Harvard study based not on peoples report but on an examination of traffic to 160 websites over a year-long period, it was found that the biggest gains in audience occurred among the non-traditional news providers.  “The sites of search engines, service providers, aggregators, and bloggers grew faster on average than the sites of traditional news providers, whether print, broadcast, or cable”.
What does this tell us? Might it be that people find it hard to admit they read blogs or manage their own blog? Should we take to our notice that 15% of those never to read blogs report that “they don’t care about the opinions and ideas typically expressed in blogs”? Is it that blogs as a whole suffer from a low reputation? What do you think? Can you find other supporting evidence?

More from the Synovate’s survey:

American bloggers:
The survey indicates that more women than men are bloggers, with 20% of American women who have visited blogs are having their own versus 14% of men.Awareness and usage:
8 out of 10 Americans know what a blog is and almost half have visited blogs.Age effect: Nearly 90% of those aged 25 to 34 know what a blog is, compared to just 65% of those aged 65 and over. Similarly, 78% of those aged 18 to 24 who are aware of blogs say they have visited a blog, compared to only 45% of older Americans.Reading habits:Visits frequency:  39% of blog readers view them less than once a month, 28% visit them monthly, 15% visit them daily, 5% read them several times a day.Loyalty to specific blogs: 46% of blog readers report visiting the same blogs regularly (while 54% usually surf for new and different ones).Blogs as information source:
65% read blogs to get opinions, 39% seek for news, 38% for entertainment. About 1 in 3 people read gossip on blog websites. 2% use blogs to catch up on personal news (family and friends).The main reason people read blogs:
Almost half of those surveyed say it’s because they find blogs entertaining, and another 26% read them to learn about specific hobbies or other areas they’re interested in. Only 15% of blog readers say they do so for news.Among those who said they have never read a blog, the main reason cited was that they’re “just not interested”. Another 15% said that they don’t care about the opinions and ideas typically expressed in blogs.Blogs as a marketing tool:
43% of blog visitors indicated that they had noticed advertisements on blog websites, rising to 61% among those aged 18 to 24. Almost one-third of consumers have clicked on an ad while reading a blog.

The Synovate study was conducted online on with 1,000 adults in the US using Synovate eNation from July 30 to August 1.

Sphere: Related ContentFiled under internet behavior, bloggers, research, pew survey, recognition, online survey, US sample, trends targets & groups having

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 11:09 am and is filed under Web 2.0. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.