Technorati have started to publish the 2009 results of their annual '
State Of The Blogosphere' survey – today is day one and findings will be released in 5 parts across this week.
The Technorati 'State Of The Blogosphere' research was an internet survey that ran from September 4-23 2009 and carried out across a sample of 2,828 bloggers (predominantly US.)
The following audiences are included throughout the 2009 State Of The Blogosphere report:
• Hobbyists (72%)
• Part-Timers (15%)
• Self Employeds (9%)
• Corporate (4%)
[For the statistically minded the margin of error for the survey is +/- 1.84% at the 95% confidence level and larger for subgroups.]
The results are interesting and give indications of how blogging is evolving. Considering how many blogs are now in existence this is by no means a 'definitive' study, but it is big enough to give some interesting insight and is one of the most comprehensive blogging reports available.
Part One of the State Of The Blogosphere Survey answers the question ‘
Who Are The Bloggers?’ Day 2 will revolve around the ‘What and Why of Blogging’, Day 3 ‘the how of blogging’, Day 4 ‘monetisation and revenue; brands in the blogosphere’ and Day 5 will be around ‘2009 trends.’ (I will re-visit this post once all results have been published.)
Today there are some interesting data that I thought was worth commenting on:
Survey respondents were male and old with high income and strong education (with 68% 35+ and 67% male):
Technorati State Of The Blogosphere 2009 - age and demographic profiles
(click for larger image)
The 4 different blogging segments – Hobbyists and professionals (comprising of Part-timers, corporate and self employeds) have differing motivations and activity levels:
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Hobbyists. Representing 72% of the respondents to this survey, hobbyists say that they blog for fun. They don’t make any money from their blogging - and only some would like to do so. More than any other group, though, Hobbyists say they blog to express their “personal musings” (53%). 71% update at least weekly, while 22% update daily. Because 76% blog to speak their minds, their main success metric is personal satisfaction (76%).
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Part-Timers. The next largest cohort, at 15%, part-timers say they “blog to supplement their income, but don’t consider it a full time job.” 75% of them blog to share their expertise, while 72% blog to attract new clients for their business. Their business and personal motives for blogging are deeply entwined - while 61% say that they measure the success of their blog by the unique pageviews they attract, 60% say they also value personal satisfaction.
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Self-Employeds. At 9% of respondents, self-employeds are in many ways the most professional of the cohorts. They say they "blog full time for their own company or organization," and 10% do report blogging 40 hours per week or more. 22% say that their blog is their company, while 70% say they own a company and blog about their business. Self-employeds also privilege page views (63%) over personal satisfaction (53%) as a success metric, and 53% are blogging more than when they started. Finally, in a demographic (bloggers) awash with Twitter users, self-employeds are the Tweetiest of them all — 88% say they use the service.
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Corporates. The smallest cohort, representing just 4% of respondents, pros say they “blog full-time for a company or organization” — though actually very few of them actually report spending a full 40 hours per week blogging. 46% are blogging more than they did when they started. 70% blog to share expertise; 53% blog to attract new clients for the business they work for. Accordingly, pageviews are the most important success metric for pros, valued by 69%, compared to 53% for personal satisfaction.
It is interesting to see how these people are blogging, with mobile growing in importance:
20% of respondents use their mobile to update their blog or add content (up 58% from 2008)
(click for larger image)
And blogs are growing in influence overall, with 38% of respondents claiming to have been quoted in traditional media:
Percentage of respondents who have been quoted in traditional media(click for larger image)The Technorati State Of The Blogosphere report is an interesting read and well worth revisiting as the different sections are released - blogging has come a long way since Technorati started the State Of The Blogosphere survey 5 years ago!
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