Just Call them Pointers-Out-Of-The-Obvious
Who, you ask, am I referring to? Why that would be the Washington Post in their little column today called "Blog Readers Unmasked." And I state that what they say is obvious in a "DUH" sort of way. But, then again, the MSM has not been too swift lately now have they?
Think the people who while away their hours reading and commenting on political blogs are slovenly twenty-somethings with nothing better to do?
Think again, said a survey last week by Blogads, a company that many leading political blogs have used for ad placements.
In an unscientific Web survey of 36,000 people, Blogads reported that political blog readers tend to be age 41 to 50, male (72 percent), and earn $60,000 to $90,000 per year. Two in five have college degrees, while just a tad less have graduate degrees.
"These are not people who are politically idealistic and born yesterday," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who runs the popular liberal site DailyKos.
"I think people want to dismiss blog readers as unemployed people in their basement. Apparently not," said Glenn Reynolds of the conservative blog InstaPundit.
Several major conservative blogs didn't take part in the survey, which was posted on 110 sites, and so the numbers were weighted in favor of Democrats.
Blogads President Henry Copeland said the findings represent "the choir" of political blog readers, the most interested and most engaged, "the political geeks who are arguing over the nuances at a press conference or the latest Hillary Clinton pronounciations."
He said Republican blog readers tend to be older, more often male, have higher incomes and less education than Democratic readers -- but only by small degrees.
The survey noted that political blog readers tend to read blogs for 10 hours per week, often for "news I can't find elsewhere."
"These are people who are presumably overworked and overstressed like the rest of us, only they find 10 hours a week to look at blogs. It's a mark of their alienation" from other forms of media, said Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
Now, take into account Dave Sifry's research regarding the blogosphere. In Part I of his research, he summed up the blogosphere succinctly as such:
Technorati now tracks over 35.3 37.3 Million blogs
The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
Part II is summed up as follows:
The blogosphere is multilingual, and deeply international
English, while being the language of the majority of early bloggers, has fallen to less than a third of all blog posts in April 2006.
Japanese and Chinese language blogging has grown significantly.
Chinese language blogging, while continuing to grow on an absolute basis, has begun to decline as an overall percentage of the posts that Technorati tracks over the last 6 months
Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and German are the languages with the greatest number of posts tracked by Technorati.
The Korean language is underrepresented in this analysis
Language breakdown does not necessarily imply a particular country or regional breakdown.
Technorati now tracks more than 100 Million author-created tags and categories on blog posts.
The rel-tag microformat has been adopted by a number of the large tool makers, making it easy for people to tag their posts. About 47% of all blog posts have non-default tags or categories associated with them.
The WaPo tells us that people who read blogs are not idiots. They did not just fall off the turnip truck. They are educated, and they are not "wackos" with conspiracy theories flying outof their butts. They are the type that enjoy the type of "personal" interaction that a blogger gives them. Again, DUH! At The Asylum, we work for precisely that goal--a level of interaction on a level that everyone can understand. We do not "dumb down" our posts, but it is also not written in confusing terms. We say what we mean, and mean what we say. And I am sure that if the WaPo did another "in-depth" and "unscientific" study, they would see that bloggers--those who write them--fit in those categories, as well.
We are not stupid. We know how to reason and analyze. We are as thorough and accurate as possible. Yes, there may be an ideology behind the person posting (such as DailyKos' left-leaning approach or Hugh Hewitt's center-right positioning) but neither side can claim that they are the more intelligent side of the blogosphere. (My personal opinion is that our side is better, but then again, we also have a huge jump on the notable bloggers on the Left side of the aisle.)
But the WaPo has not revealed anything that we did not already know. It is nice to see that their journalists can really handle the "tough" issues facing the world today.
The Bunny ;)
Who, you ask, am I referring to? Why that would be the Washington Post in their little column today called "Blog Readers Unmasked." And I state that what they say is obvious in a "DUH" sort of way. But, then again, the MSM has not been too swift lately now have they?
Think the people who while away their hours reading and commenting on political blogs are slovenly twenty-somethings with nothing better to do?
Think again, said a survey last week by Blogads, a company that many leading political blogs have used for ad placements.
In an unscientific Web survey of 36,000 people, Blogads reported that political blog readers tend to be age 41 to 50, male (72 percent), and earn $60,000 to $90,000 per year. Two in five have college degrees, while just a tad less have graduate degrees.
"These are not people who are politically idealistic and born yesterday," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who runs the popular liberal site DailyKos.
"I think people want to dismiss blog readers as unemployed people in their basement. Apparently not," said Glenn Reynolds of the conservative blog InstaPundit.
Several major conservative blogs didn't take part in the survey, which was posted on 110 sites, and so the numbers were weighted in favor of Democrats.
Blogads President Henry Copeland said the findings represent "the choir" of political blog readers, the most interested and most engaged, "the political geeks who are arguing over the nuances at a press conference or the latest Hillary Clinton pronounciations."
He said Republican blog readers tend to be older, more often male, have higher incomes and less education than Democratic readers -- but only by small degrees.
The survey noted that political blog readers tend to read blogs for 10 hours per week, often for "news I can't find elsewhere."
"These are people who are presumably overworked and overstressed like the rest of us, only they find 10 hours a week to look at blogs. It's a mark of their alienation" from other forms of media, said Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
Now, take into account Dave Sifry's research regarding the blogosphere. In Part I of his research, he summed up the blogosphere succinctly as such:
Technorati now tracks over 35.3 37.3 Million blogs
The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour
Part II is summed up as follows:
The blogosphere is multilingual, and deeply international
English, while being the language of the majority of early bloggers, has fallen to less than a third of all blog posts in April 2006.
Japanese and Chinese language blogging has grown significantly.
Chinese language blogging, while continuing to grow on an absolute basis, has begun to decline as an overall percentage of the posts that Technorati tracks over the last 6 months
Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and German are the languages with the greatest number of posts tracked by Technorati.
The Korean language is underrepresented in this analysis
Language breakdown does not necessarily imply a particular country or regional breakdown.
Technorati now tracks more than 100 Million author-created tags and categories on blog posts.
The rel-tag microformat has been adopted by a number of the large tool makers, making it easy for people to tag their posts. About 47% of all blog posts have non-default tags or categories associated with them.
The WaPo tells us that people who read blogs are not idiots. They did not just fall off the turnip truck. They are educated, and they are not "wackos" with conspiracy theories flying outof their butts. They are the type that enjoy the type of "personal" interaction that a blogger gives them. Again, DUH! At The Asylum, we work for precisely that goal--a level of interaction on a level that everyone can understand. We do not "dumb down" our posts, but it is also not written in confusing terms. We say what we mean, and mean what we say. And I am sure that if the WaPo did another "in-depth" and "unscientific" study, they would see that bloggers--those who write them--fit in those categories, as well.
We are not stupid. We know how to reason and analyze. We are as thorough and accurate as possible. Yes, there may be an ideology behind the person posting (such as DailyKos' left-leaning approach or Hugh Hewitt's center-right positioning) but neither side can claim that they are the more intelligent side of the blogosphere. (My personal opinion is that our side is better, but then again, we also have a huge jump on the notable bloggers on the Left side of the aisle.)
But the WaPo has not revealed anything that we did not already know. It is nice to see that their journalists can really handle the "tough" issues facing the world today.
The Bunny ;)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 1:53 PM
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