Thursday, July 20, 2006

Who blogs? And why? By Jack Shafer

Over 30. Sorta use a pseudonym. Creative self-expression and document personal experience? Check and not so much. Mostly people I know, with some randoms and other bloggers i've never personally met. Do want to change people's minds, or at least expand their musical minds. Never been published in any music journo sorta way.

Who blogs? And why? By Jack Shafer: "Who Are All These Bloggers?
And what do they want?
By Jack Shafer
Updated Wednesday, July 19, 2006, at 6:19 PM ET

When I hear the word 'bloggers,' I tend to think of the A-listers. But the top 100 are not the quarry of the Pew Internet & American Life Project telephone survey of bloggers, published today. They're stalking the larger universe of 12 million adult Americans who blog.

Who are all those bloggers? Why do they blog?

The Pew report, written briskly and ably by Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox, delivers an array of provocative findings about bloggers. The most immediately startling for me was the repetition of the phrases 'about half ' or 'nearly half' to describe various blogger attributes. About half of all American bloggers are men, says Pew. About half are under the age of 30. About half use a pseudonym. About half say creative self-expression or documenting personal experiences is a major reason for blogging. About half think their audience is folks they already know. Half say changing people's minds is not a major reason behind their blog, and about half had never published before starting their blog. (The margin of error for the telephone survey was plus or minus 7 percentage points.)"

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