Yesterday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released an intriguing new report: Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers
A few highlights:
- 39% of net users (about 57 million American adults) read blogs -- a significant increase since the fall of 2005. And 8% of net users (about 12 million American adults) keep a blog.
- Most US blogs are personal journals. Most bloggers do not consider their blogging journalism. However, 57% of bloggers include links to original sources either "sometimes" or "often." And 56% spend extra time trying to verify facts they want to include in a post either "sometimes" or "often."
- 54% of bloggers are under 30.
- US bloggers are evenly divided between men and women -- so anyone who continues to ask "where are the women bloggers?" is probably not really looking. (I'm sure this will be a huge topic of conversation at the upcoming BlogHer conference, which I'm attending.)
These were the most common primary blog topics cited:
- "My life and experiences:" 37%
- Politics and government: 11%
- Entertainment: 7%
- Sports: 6%
- General news and current events: 5%
- Business: 5%
- Technology: 4%
- Religion, spirituality or faith: 2%
- Hobbies: 1%
- Health: 1%
Pew surveyed 7,012 US adults by phone, including 4,753 internet users, 8% of whom are bloggers.
I was wondering why among the topics categorized there was...
