Why Bloggers Blog: PEW Internet Research

April 8th, 2007

I forget exactly when I downloaded this PEW Internet Research PDF about Bloggers (it dates from 2006). I link to this information keeping in the spirit of the Why Do You Blog? Meme going around.

The majority of the information is fairly obvious to anybody who blogs and can make an educated guess, but some information I found interesting.

• The number 1 reason for having a blog was “To express yourself creatively” at 52%. “To make money” was at the bottom, with only 7%.
• Only one-third of bloggers see blogging as a form of journalism.
• Most bloggers post infrequently. Only 13% post daily or more frequently.
• Personal experiences are the most popular topic.
• LiveJournal users are more likely to be female and young — nearly one in five of 18–29 year old bloggers used LiveJournal. Blogger had more than its share of college graduates with 13% of college-educated bloggers using Blogger. MySpace has a larger share of bloggers who have not yet continued their education past high school.
• Lastly, blogging for pay is rare. Only 15% say money is a reason they blog and only 8% reports actual income.

Obviously, I spend most of my time reading blogs linked to from Techmeme, Megite, and Tailrank. This report reminded me that this is a small subset of blogs — not necessarily the best or the cream of the crop. There are tons of other blogs out there, on MySpace, LiveJournal, Blogger, and WordPress which I sheepishly admit I rarely start at when looking for blogs to read or link to. I owe it to myself to check some of them out. I have a feeling they’ll be a nice refresher from all the technology blogs I currently have in my feed reader.

Second, I find it somewhat comforting that most bloggers don’t consider money as a primary reason for blogging.