comScore Networks today released a report detailing the scale, composition and activities of audiences of Weblogs, commonly known as “blogs.” The report, which was sponsored in part by Six Apart and Gawker Media, found that nearly 50 million Americans, or about 30 percent of the total U.S. Internet population, visited blogs in Q1 2005. This represents an increase of 45 percent compared to Q1 2004.
Other key findings of the Behaviors of the Blogosphere report include:
• Five hosting services for blogs each had more than 5 million unique visitors in Q1 2005, and four individual blogs had more than 1 million visitors each
• Of 400 of the largest blogs observed, segmented by eight (non-exclusive) categories, political blogs were the most popular, followed by "hipster" lifestyle blogs, tech blogs and blogs authored by women
• Compared to the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and connect to the Web on high-speed connections
• Blog readers also visit nearly twice as many web pages as the Internet average, and they are much more likely to shop online
Overall I was surprised at the traffic levels on certain blogs which were lower than I had expected and while the impact of blogs is substantial they are not going to replace trusted core brands anytime soon. However, MSM certainly needs to see the value of community participation and aggressively embrance it.
Click here for the full Behaviors of the Blogosphere analysis and also see the reaction from Jason Calacanis who runs WebLogs Inc.
One of the aspects of these blog networks that interests me, (where the individual sites are owned by the network, not the individual) is whether or not the low cost content model works long-term. The passion and exhuberance of the young contributors is great but is a model where content is provided very inexpensively sustainable, especially as the user expectations of the quality of the content will increase. To be useful to buyers - there has to be a lot more than just the news and if done well that content is much more costly.
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