Blogs still not widely read

"A new poll conducted by CNN, USA Today and Gallup uncovers some surprising data about blog readership in the US.

Few US adults are aware of blogs — just 7% say they are "very familiar" with them, compared to 56% who say they are "not at all familiar." Similarly, few read blogs regularly. In all age groups, most people say they never read blogs, although readership is higher among younger people."

All my talk about blogging not being mainstream in South Africa is a bit misleading.  Blogging isn’t really mainstream in the United States either and that is the market we generally look to for leadership in matters of the Web.  By the way, the source article on eMarketer will not be public after 31 March 2005 so if you want to read the rest of the article, visit the site soon (or you could just look below for the full article).

(via Debbie Weil)

Ages of the Blog

Published: March 24, 2005

(After March 31, 2005, this article will only be available to eStat Database subscribers.)

 

A new poll conducted by CNN, USA Today and Gallup uncovers some surprising data about blog readership in the US.

Few US
adults are aware of blogs — just 7% say they are "very familiar" with
them, compared to 56% who say they are "not at all familiar."
Similarly, few read blogs regularly. In all age groups, most people say
they never read blogs, although readership is higher among younger
people.

As the survey’s authors point out, news consumption is usually
higher among older people than among younger people, suggesting that
older people might be a receptive blog audience. And indeed, when the
numbers are broken down by Internet usage, a different picture emerges.
Just 33% of those age 65 and over use the Net, but of that online
population, 28% read blogs. That figure is more in line with younger
groups. For example, 91% of adults 18 to 29 years-old use the Net, and
of those, 44% read blogs.

A major force behind the expansion of blogging in the past few
years has been politics, and many of the most popular blogs are
political in nature. But a Gallup poll conducted in December 2004 found
that few Americans get their daily dose of news from blogs. Rather, 51%
reported getting their daily news updates from local TV news, 44% said
they got it from local newspapers, and 39% got it from cable news
stations. In fact, just 3% got news from blogs every day, less than
radio talk shows and broadcast network news.

But there is one group that flocks to blogs for daily updates — bloggers. As reported in Blog Readers Say Blogging Is Big,
most bloggers read multiple blogs every day. And about three-fourths of
bloggers read blogs because they feel the sites expose them to news
they can’t find elsewhere, and provide them with a better perspective.

Of course, blogs are for more than news — they are used for
keeping track of personal lives, businesses, goings-on in a city, and
more. Blogging is still a relatively new phenomenon, and as familiarity
with it expands, blogs may become more widely used.

To keep informed about trends in the blogosphere, stayed tuned to the eNews page for more articles, and take a look in our eStat Database for more data on this topic.