Jasaon Calacanis, of Weblogs, Inc. (Endgadget, Autoblog, and more) raised concerns with the comScore report released yesterday and in a follow-up asks to to see the data behind it. Rick Bruner who was with comScore when the report was put together and was its project manager responds on his blog amd in Jason’s comments.
Confusing, concerning and I don’t know enough to comment. But I can at least point you in the direction of those concerned and let them speak for themselves. Read up.
50 Million Americans visited 400 blog domains in the first quarter of 2005 – In a report that is sure to get noticed by media execs, national advertisers, and blog entrepreneurs, comScore Networks released a study of blog visitors and their behavior:
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
“The fact that we found 30 percent of the online population to have visited blogs clearly underscores the commercial importance of consumer generated and driven media,” said Dan Hess, senior vice president of comScore Networks. “It’s noteworthy that while the blog audience is already quite large and growing, its demographic composition relative to the total population will appeal to many marketers.”
Here is a link to the report.
Reactions and commentary:
* Fred Wilson: even more interesting is the difference in the way the “youth” blogging platforms like Xanga and Live Journal and the “mature” blogging platforms like Blogspot and typepad are used…Clearly the “youth” blogging platforms are “stickier”.
* John Battelle: As someone who is starting a business in the blog space, I’m pleased. But I hope we remember as we generalize about “the blogging audience” that at the end of the day, it’s not about generalizing, it’s about endemic, passionate communities
* Nick Denton: There’s only one measurement that matters, however, to media buyers at the ad agencies. comScore found that, while 37% of internet users had annual household income in excess of $75,000, 41% of blog readers were in that top band.
* Jeff Jarvis: comScore says that blogs are now big media.
A shocker for many is just how different the top 25 blogs are – as ranked by visitors – as compared to the links analysis that traditional blog related tools provide. In fact – this list will freak some out entirely.
Another shocker will probably be the domination of visitors coming to blogs for for politics and news. 43 percent of all visitors. This should raise the eyebrows of many who look down on blog driven sites for sources of them.
A major problem with this report – as a way to judge the ‘top 25 blogs’ – is that is that blogs that are hosted on by blogging services are entirely lost in the data since this report sums entire hosting domains – that is if I understand it correctly. So no ranking for Atrios for example. Which is flawed to say the very, very least. Possibly they will release this data so that folks can drill down. I hope SixApart will convince them to do so if they don’t plan to. Otherwise – well this is just one more reason for folks to not use these hosted services and to get their own domains.
One unfounded conclusion, however, could be that folks on average – reading and visiting blogs – DO NOT SHARE the linking behavior that many have come to expect, and rely on, as a way to judge the size, growth, and influence bloggers and blogging.
One of TV journalism’s giants passes. May God bless Peter Jennings and his family. He left his mark on me, as I am sure he did for everyone I know.
…”There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe,” he told author Jeff Alan. “I don’t subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry it’s a cliche — a rough draft of history. Some days it’s reassuring, some days it’s absolutely destructive.”
– Peter Jennings
This has been a terrific, but busy week. First off…thanks to the bands, the bar owners, and especially all those who came out Friday and Saturday for the Sleeping Angels Fund Music Fest. I think we had over a hundred on Friday alone. A special shout out to Dante and Katie – you pulled off a great event. I’m proud of you.
An admission – it was weird having friends from work there (I wonder what I’m going to hear on Monday!), but no blogging buddies. I admit that made me a little sad.
In any case, the band practiced hard this week to make up for a whole year of not playing out – and we kicked some ass. It was good. Very good. A release. I hope we keep at it this time.
In Philly Future news, we launched a Philadelphia specific advertiser network. I’ve been talking to developers about providing the tools to bring online a missing persons network. I’ve also been working to upgrade Philly Future to the latest and greatest version of CivicSpace.
I got into a deep discussion on the existence of the “A-list” that you can read more about here, here and here. The conversation seems to have been read by a few folks out here that I admire. I have a slightly different take then most I know, who seem to either want to decry its existence, want to tear it down somehow, or want to deny it even exists.
This Thursday we had a launch day at Comcast.net for new features. Always a big day. It went very smooth.
And yesterday we had a huge surprise birthday party for my mom (my mother in-law). Happy birthday mom!
Oh and I was out drinking three nights this week. In particular with my co-workers who came out Friday (you rock!).
And yes, that’s us above. Me in the red Daily News shirt, Dante belting his heart out, Steve on bass, and Billy on drums – the heart of the band.
It was a big week for the netroots in Philly as well. Go read Suburban Guerrilla – Growing, but I need to quote the following from her:
People are always remarking on how many well-known bloggers live in Philadelphia. “Is it something in the water?” people often say to me.
Well, it’s a number of things, I suppose: Philadelphia is not a cutthroat town. From the very beginning, the local blogging community has helped each other out, and those at the top of the blogging food chain have been very good about reaching down and pulling up the rest. (We also socialize a lot, which helps.)
Maybe it’s that Philadelphia has always been a place where important ideas generate and take form – remember that little thing called the Continental Congress? Every time I talk to another local blogger, there’s a new idea – and the next time we talk, it’s already on its way to becoming real. People here are also very good at sharing – there aren’t many resources you couldn’t find here (OK, both Jim Capozzola and I really need a free dentist, but other than that…) and someone will always help.
I guess if I had to sum it up briefly (and I know you wish I would), it would be this: Some people may look at a problem and say, “We can’t do anything about that.” In Philadelphia, people look at a problem, talk about possible solutions and say, “Well, why the fuck not?”
Ah Sunday 🙂
In response to Om Malik’s post on the dark side of tagging, Shelley Powers writes a powerful piece on technology and human behavior arguing that no matter how our tools may change – its our practices that matter – take note of who is getting linked to over the BlogHer conference and why:
…If women are not as visible in weblogging (or technology or politics and so on) because of some
escoteric to do with technology, then our problems could be easily solved. I would personally devote my life to finding the Woman Algorithm — the algorithm to give equality to women. But, as we’ve seen with the recent linking to BlogHer reports, the issue isn’t that simple. Even considering the fact that BlogHer was about women in
weblogging, the single most linked individual post on the conference,was Jay Rosen’s–one of the few men to attend the conference.Why was Jay’s the most linked? Well, some of it was because he provided a viewpoint that led to debate. He used a ‘confrontational’ term that was guaranteed to trigger furious discussion. I linked to him for that specific reason, as did other people. However, Halley Suitt also wrote a post that generated much debate, and though it was also well linked, not as much as Jay’s. Does this, then, mean that Jay’s was a better post? No,not necessarily.
If you look at those who linked to Jay, you’ll see two patterns: people who linked to Jay because of what he said, and others who linked to Jay because of who he is. What is the common characteristic of those who linked to Jay without specifically referencing the ongoing discussion? They were all men. Is this relevant? Well, considering the purpose behind Blogher, I would say the results aren’t irrelevant.
In a related post, Seth Finkelstein notes that that BlogHer “backlash” is self-proving A-list’ery:
…There were a few hundred people who attended the BlogHer conference. Which leads to a few hundred direct opinions from attendees about how it went. Add indirect opinions from interested readers too. Now, of this melange of viewpoints and conversations, which ones were amplified overall and then retailed to thousands of people not involved. Simple:
THE OPINIONS OF THE A-LISTERS!
So, if you believe all that matters is socializing, you can dismiss everything else, since it doesn’t affect whatever socializing happened. If you believe being heard and having an influence matters, well, that fact that a handful of rich/connected ranty A-listers (some who weren’t even there) are basically defining the issues to everyone else, should be a sterling disproof of meritocracy.
Of course, that also implies this post doesn’t matter, but it has an individual purpose in noting I’d been quoted :-).
In a related thought, it has finally occured to me why Dave Rogers and Shelley Powers have had issues with Technorati claming its lists measure the “authority” of certain blogs – because they can’t. It’s a misuse of the word. These lists measure influence. Attention-influence. An important distinction that gets lost in these discussions. In his latest post on all this Dave notes:
For my criticism to have some effect, I would have to be perceived as at least authoritative as Technorati. I would have to be near their rank in the hierarchy (not explicitly the Top 100). So the critical or negative nature of my attention-directing is largely discounted, and the effect is really just to call more attention to Technorati, which it desires and which I think is undesirable.
I would say he would need to as influential as Technorati. Lots of folks and institutions are influential who aren’t “authorities”. But the gist I agree with – those with high page ranks/quality inbound links have more influence over the direction conversations take then almost anyone wants to admit.
I hope to see you there.
Check out the big news at Philly Future.
Ever have a solo you just can’t nail because it’s too fast? Ever want to slow it down to practice to? I have. I had thought my only option would be to buy something like Tascam’s CDGT Guitar Trainer, but now I’ve figured out a way to do it for free.
Import the mp3 you want to practice into Audacity, highlight the part you are having difficulty with, and use the “Change Tempo” effect to slow down that section – without changing pitch! It’s awesome!
Wired News: Brain Workouts May Tone Memory:
It’s common knowledge that a proper exercise regimen can do wonders for the body. Only recently, however, have psychologists and gerontologists aggressively applied the same principle to the mind.
Among people who work with older adults, the concept of “cognitive fitness” has become a buzzword to describe activities that stimulate underutilized areas of the brain and improve memory. Proponents of brain-fitness exercises say such mental conditioning can help prevent or delay memory loss and the onset of other age-related cognitive disorders.
“Most people’s idea of fitness stops at the neck,” said Patti Celori, executive director of the New England Cognitive Center. “But the brain is the CPU of our body, and most people don’t do much to keep it as fit as possible.”
The NECC runs one of a growing number of programs that work with older adults to improve cognitive abilities. Activities include computer programs designed to stimulate specific areas of the brain, replication of geometric designs using boards with pegs and rubber bands, and visual and auditory memory exercises.
Some of the other programs are Maintain Your Brain, initiated a year ago by the Alzheimer’s Association; Mind Alert, run by the American Society on Aging; and other regional programs such as the Center for Healthy Aging in Kent, Ohio.
Flash site focused on Kung Fu and the physics behind it. Check it out.