Blogging is huge and here’s the report that proves it

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Need to prove to someone that blogging is huge? Check out this Pew Research report on blogging. Some notable points:

  • Blog readership shoots up 58% in 2004
  • 6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators
  • But 62% of online Americans do not know what a blog is
  • By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere and its popularity:
  • 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created ablog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people.
  • 27% of internet users say they read blogs, a 58% jump from the 17% who told us they were blog readers in February. This means that by the end of 2004 32 million Americans were blog readers. Much of the attention to blogs focused on those thatcovered the recent political campaign and the media. And at least some of the overall growth in blog readership is attributable to political blogs. Some 9% of internet users said they read political blogs “frequently” or “sometimes” during the campaign.
  • 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get thenews and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as itis posted online. This is a first-time measurement from our surveys and is anindicator that this application is gaining an impressive foothold.
  • The interactive features of many blogs are also catching on: 12% of internet usershave posted comments or other material on blogs.
  • At the same time, for all the excitement about blogs and the media coverage ofthem, blogs have not yet become recognized by a majority of internet users. Only38% of all internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term“blog” means.