So Pew has come out with a survey on bloggers, and I’m wondering what you fellas think.
Related surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the blog population has grown to about 12 million American adults, or 8% of adult internet users and that the number of blog readers has jumped to 57 million American adults, or 39% of the online population.
54% of bloggers are under the age of 30.
Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54%.
57 million American adults read blogs? Apparently the vast majority of them haven’t heard of this place yet.
Jim: Looking at the survey results, the popularity of posting very personal information on the Internet surprises me; perhaps this is a reflection of the “everyone is entitled to fifteen minutes of fame” mentality. (It’s worth noting that when Warhol said that in the future, everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes, he wasn’t saying it was a good thing.) Reality television has turned people into minor celebrities for eating bugs, or surviving an island, or working for the Donald, or what have you. If you can get an audience just for fighting with your roommates (MTV’s Real World, Big Brother, etc.), then I guess many people conclude you can get an audience by writing about your daily life on your blog.
I wonder how many of these blogs will last; after a while, the thrill of sharing the details of your life with the world at large has to fade, right? Or are we such an exhibitionist society that in the future, most people will have a site that merges Facebook, MySpace, and their personal blog? You meet someone, you check out their blog, and you learn all kinds of details about their lives - favorite books, movies, interests, pets, and what they had for breakfast that morning.
(Somewhere out there, a bunch of stalkers just said, “Yessss!!!!”)
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July 20, 2006 - 11:26 am
one blogger at a time…found you thru your blog Cam Edwards…new reader to both. Followed your stuff thru the UN (can’t we send the UN over to France or something?) gun rules. Heard on the news (I watch FOX and CNBC) that one of the countries in the Israel-Lebanon conflict not sure which country/group stated they are confiscating all weapons caches found.
anyway-a new reader and thanks for being out here…need the sanity in the insane loss of Personal Choice in All Things!
“oldstudent”
July 20, 2006 - 8:28 pm
Well Cam, with 54% of bloggers being under the age of 30, I would say that makes you an old man in the blogosphere.
July 21, 2006 - 7:32 pm
Jim mused, “I wonder how many of these blogs will last?”
With me, it’s six years and counting.
Of course, like Warhol’s old saw, observing a fact doesn’t necessarily amount to endorsing that fact.