Mark Evans has an intersting post titled Who Reads Blog? Apparently, “Almost No One” in which he quotes Jeff Cole, the director of the Center for the Digital Future:
I would actually have to agree (but perhaps without the attitude). However, it also depends on how you define the word ‘read’. While it’s certainly true that blogs are probably not “read” per se anywhere near the amount some in the blogger community believe, the fact is people hit blogs all the time when searching for answers, and for the average person they don’t really know the difference between a “blog” and any other web content, nor do they care. Few of them want to read a blog regularly. Most people don’t ready anything ‘regularly’ whether blogs or big-media. They read what they want, when they want.
In my analysis of blog readership, the traits and behaviors of blog readers, the data suggests to me that there is a disconnect between those with an affinity to blogs and mainstream web users. The blog-savvy, those that use a ton of RSS feeds and stay up on the latest blogger, or blogged about, widgets and tools, have tendencies that are distinct from mainstream web users. They are essentially an elite sub-culture. They are not representative of the masses and should not be weighed very heavily in estimating behaviors of web users at large. I don’t believe they are leading the industry or “ahead of the curve” as Mark does. I don’t expect the mainstream to follow this elite segment toward the same level of sophistication. Aggregation and Search Engines will continue to have a role for mainstream users.
Hello Mr. Blog,
I think this topic is very interesting, for it involves the work of millions of people editing its own blog and whishing to be read.
There is one concept for which I agree: Internet users don’t mind (or don’t mind so much) the source of the information, but basically they are answers-searchers. What’s important is to find fast and useful answers, and nobody can say the blogosphere doesn’t give its contribution to this.
Some months ago I had had to setup a last-minute half hour presentation in five days, and the information I learned from bloggers was invaluable.
I am new to the blogging community, and I think blogs are a very important way of self-expression, at least they allow you members of the public to put forward an alternative point of view other than the mainstream official media you are constantly having to listen to and watch. Maybe, we are still in the stage of building our blogs, and maybe that’s why readership as opposed to browzing is yet small, but once you get to that stage many will start to read, notice, comment and even analyze what is being said. They could say as real alternatives to the constant tunnel vision approaches we are subjected to
hey there.