State of the Blogosphere April 2006
David Sifry posted State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth at the Technorati Weblog today. It’s only been 3 months since David’s last report, and the blogosphere hasn’t shown any signs of slowing–in fact, it continues to double every six months. New weblogs are created at the rate of one per second. That’s one now, and now, and now, and now. AND I TYPE REALLY FAST.
A new word gets coined in this report, I’ll let Mr. Sifry do it himself. Of those that derive from spam, I think this might be my favorite.
There has been an increase in the overall noise level in the blogosphere during 2006, but aside from a few notable spam storms (“sporms”? Just how far can you take this naming system?) noted in red in the chart above, the high level of interesting, original content being created greatly outweighs the fake or duplicate content listed on splogs.
The Facts:
- Technorati now tracks over 35.3 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
David Sifry does a remarkable job of providing useful information to bloggers. I use this data regularly to help friends, family, and business clients to understand what blogs are and what impact blogs are having on the Internet and the world we live in.
Who needs this information to understand what you do? How might you package these facts to promote your business? . . . to help your clients promote theirs?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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wow! one new blog every second?? that sounds like one really big rat-race to me.
And ya Liz, you type really fast.
Thanks for sharing this info. Its getting really troublesome typing your url everytime i think of reading something worth reading. So i guess i will bookmark you afterall 😉
chao
Hi Jack,
That’s kind of the response I had three months ago when I read that report. Hold onto that feeling. It’s a powerful and one you should use to communicate that folks aren’t getting what’s going if they’re not in here being a part of it.
Think of what that one fact means to the whole world and how it’s already changing the way the world works. When was the last time you used a phone book to find a phone number?
Thanks for figuring out how hard it is to type my url–I planned it that way so that folks named Jack would have to bookmark my blog. 🙂
I appreciate your confidence.
Liz
The blogosphere is growing, but the 35.3 number might be a bit self-serving for Technorati. I’d estimate that 90% of those blogs aren’t active, and won’t ever be active. People get excited, complete a “blog” wizard at their favorite provider, and never go back.
That does still leave a healthy 3.5 million active bloggers out there. But only a small portion (like Liz) of those (from what I’ve seen) “get it.” I’m hoping I figure it out soon. 🙂
Thank FR,
You’re right in that 35.3 is just a number. Still the number 3 months ago was 27 or 28 million. No matter how you slice it. It’s a LOT.
David made the statement last quarter, that no one can read all of the content being generated at this speed. I’m sure most of it is not worth reading, as you imply in your comment.
It’s sounds to me that you’ve already “got it.” What more is there to get. If you want to go really deep, read Doc Searles at Linux Journal. I just noticed he’s not in the sidebar on this one of my blogs I’ll add him now. So that you can get there easily.
smiles,
Liz
Hey Liz,
Good day…
The 35.3 million blogs is only what Technorati tracks if I am not mistaken.
I’m quite sure there are many more that are not tracked by that service and are tracked by others.
I personally think the number is quite a bit higher. No stats to prove it, but there are a lot of Blogs out there that don’t use Technorati.
Joe
Hey Joe,
Good day to you too,
Thanks for bringing that up. You’re right. That IS only what Technorati indexes. Who knows what percent of the whole that might be. I know that the biggest teachers’ conference only gets attended by 15% of the teachers. A good percent of the rest have never heard of it.
Hmmmm. I would expect that Most bloggers have also heard of Technorati because of the nature of blogging, so let’s say they get 75% . . . that still leaves a LOT of blogs that aren’t in that 35.3 million.
WHEW!!!!!!
35,300,000
-26,475,000
= 8,825,000
35,300,000
+ 8,825,000
=44,125,000
I still think it’s higher.
J.
Yeah, it probably is twice that. Hey, I thought you were the guy who didn’t like math.
I don’t, I used a calculator.
J.
I don’t, I used a calculator. 🙂
J.
Even financial analysts use calculators, and they like math. That’s not a gating factor. 🙂
Looking at data from bloglines users, we’ve concluded that
– The feeds that really matter (FTRMs) are a very small fraction of blogosphere
– FTRMs double each year, not each six months
– Most users follow a modest number of feeds
For details, see http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2006/04/18/preferential-attachment-in-feeds/
Thanks Tim, for the added data. It looks like you’ve been studying this for a reason. Want to share more?