Who Reads Blog? Apparently, “Almost No One”
I’ve been writing about or working within the Internet since 1995 so I’ve got a pretty good handle on the key trends. That said, it’s amazing how much new information and insight you get from listening to Jeff Cole, the director of the Center for the Digital Future, which has been conducting a comprehensive study on Internet usage since 1999. I’ll write a more complete post tomorrow but one thing that resonated with me was Cole’s take on blogs.
“Almost no one reads blogs,” he said today during a lunch-time presentation in Toronto put together by eBay Canada. “The audience for most blogs is tiny….We think most bloggers have achieved the anonymity they rich deserve.”
For someone working for a blog networking company and passionate about blogging, that’s troubling to hear. But Cole is right - most of the 55 million blogs (and counting) out there don’t get many readers but that’s okay because people write blogs for all kinds of reasons beyond being popular. Still, it does make you realize the enthusiasm for blogging overshadows blog readership - at least for now. My take is bloggers are ahead of the curve as many people seeking information on the Web are still dabbling with the blogosphere. However, that will start to change as more people get comfortable about blogs, spend more time reading blogs, and start to realize there is a rich world of insight, comment and information available at no cost.
I think Cole is making a valid point about an industry/community that tends to filter or brush aside criticism or suggestions it’s not as important or popular. As much as the blogosphere likes to think about itself as an emerging medium, it has a long way to go before it enters the mainstream. Hopefully, future studies will start to suggest blog readership is gaining momentum, which will good news for bloggers, and selfish-speaking, blog networks.
Technorati Tags: Jeff Cole
February 26th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
One of the most important things about bringing blogs to the masses is to help people better understand how feed readers (and thus, feeds) work, otherwise most people don’t return to a blog once they’ve read what they want.
Nowadays, a large percentage of results of my Google searches are from blogs, and so I have a good chance of visiting a blog for what I want. The problem is that, once most people visit a blog post for what they need, and if they like the blog’s content, they aren’t aware that they can subscribe to the blog.
Just my $0.023216 CAD (after accounting for the exchange rate.)
February 26th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I would agree with Gary. While it’s certainly true that blogs are probably not “read” per se anywhere near the amount some in the blogger community believe, the fact is people hit blogs all the time when searching for answers, and for the average person that don’t really know the difference between a “blog” and any other web content, nor do they care. Few of them want to read a blog regularly. Most people don’t ready anything ‘regularly’ whether blogs or big-media. They read what they want, when they want.
February 26th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
All bloggers think people want to read them all the time…:)
February 26th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
The issue is just not how many, but WHO reads blogs. I know the people in Ottawa and journalists read blogs, so if you do develop a gathering, people will take what you say seriously. If there are stories about blogs in the newspaper, it’s because someone is taking them seriously.
February 26th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Mark:
I was also at Jeff’s presentation today. I did not think that Jeff said that almost no one reads blogs but instead the latter part of your quote was more consistent with Jeff’s comments…that the audience for MOST blogs is tiny. Those very few bloggers that gain a substantial audience and reputation tend to move into more traditional media (I know, there are exceptions and one person we know that did the reverse
). Jeff’s point was that most bloggers do not write blogs for others to read but write them for self expression. Publishing content is the end goal not necessarily readership.
February 27th, 2007 at 12:55 am
I was suspicious of this story, especially given the lack of statistics. Did Jeff Cole share any readership figures? You could say the audience for community weeklies is “almost no one” if major metro dailies are your rule. Doesn’t mean the weeklies aren’t important to their audience or unprofitable for that matter. I’m sure the same applies to blogs.
February 27th, 2007 at 4:54 am
I think a blog is just another way to present yourself and, yes, whilst it may not receive a huge readership it may make all the difference when it comes to someone finding out about you. As Gary says a lot of people regularly use Google, including HR people and prospective clients. I know that, through my blog, people can get a pretty good idea about me without ever having met me and I think that thats a great thing for a PR student trying to stand out in a crowd.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
[...] really cool about writing your first blog post is that there’s a virtual guarantee that no one is going to read it. Except my mom. Hi mom. And possibly a few of friends, for mockery purposes. Hello friends. It is, [...]