So much for the much-vaunted 'citizen journalist'. A recent PC Advisor poll suggests that the vast majority of internet users hold little store by blogs (he blogged).
Somewhat concerningly for your correspondent and his colleagues, only 4.5 percent of visitors to this site think 'blogs are great'. The highest group of responders (36 percent) are underwhelmed by weblogs, saying: 'I read them from time to time, but I'm not that impressed'. While a slightly smaller cohort (33 percent) describe blogs as a 'waste of time'.
What's really interesting (I'm getting there) is that research released in July from the Pew Internet and American Life study shows that nearly 12 million adult Americans blog, out of a total online audience of 147 million. Extrapolate this and that's one in 10 people online who blog, and that's a lot of content to read.
So let's be clear about this: millions of people are publishing blogs, but few people think they are worth reading. Perhaps quality control counts for something after all?
Comments
Luke Brynley-Jones said: The thing about blogging is - most people arent writers and dont want to be - they just want to post up news photos etc when they want to Likewise they are more interested in reading their friends news and seeing family photos than reading other peoples views on blogs We recently launched etribes wwwetribescom on this premise and are getting great feedback from our customers 27000 so far