6. Historic data about bloggers: their age and choice of blogging platforms
Time Magazine cover: person of the year 2006 is “You. Yes, you. You control the Information Age.”
I’m continuously searching for data about older bloggers, and yesterday I discovered a 2006 study from the Pew Internet & American Life project titled Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers. Now, 2006 is 12 years ago. To an older person, that’s like yesterday, but in internet terms it’s a lifetime. Their findings are fascinating. (By the way, the Pew sample was 233 people, roughly comparable with our 220. and biased in some ways, as was ours.) Let me share a few surprises from this report.
1. Personal blogs were by far the most common in 2006
The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism. (Pew/Internet 2006)
So in 2006, the personal blog ruled. The topics analysed were as follows — and hey, no mention of travel or makeup or ageing:
- “my life and experiences” (37%)
- politics and government (11%)
- entertainment-related topics (7%)
- sports (6%)
- general news and current events (5%)
- business (5%)
- technology (4%)
- religion, spirituality or faith (2%)
- a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each 1%).
- other topics: opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.
(Pew/Internet 2006)
Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know the distribution of blog topics in 2018? I can’t imagine how one would get this information, given that there are millions of blog posts every day, and a blog is not necessarily attached to any one platform such as wordpress.com or Facebook.
2. The blogging population in 2005–06 was young
The following demographic data comes from two surveys of internet users conducted in November-December 2005 and February-April 2006, and the sample (n=7,012) was much larger.
The most distinguishing characteristic of bloggers is their youth. More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30. (Pew/Internet 2006)
According to Sysomos, by 2010 the average age of bloggers may have been even younger; they found that 73.5% were under the age of 35. Does that mean that older bloggers are a small minority even now? If you can find any later statistics, please tell!
3. In 2006, 55% bloggers used a pseudonym
In our Older Bloggers Survey, roughly 12% included their full name or first name in the blog title. I’m not sure how many include their full name as part of the information they provide on their About Me page. So I can’t state how many of the older bloggers in our sample use a pseudonym without further research. I wonder what the facts are?
55% of bloggers blog under a pseudonym, and 46% blog under their own name. (Pew/Internet 2006)
4. In 2006, most bloggers spent less time blogging than they do today
This result from the Pew Internet study is confirmed by subsequent research into the general population of bloggers. As for the older bloggers in our 2018 sample, only 28% spend 2 hours or less per week writing and publishing their blogs, 32% spend 3–4 hours per week — but exactly the same percentage (10%) spend ten hours or more on their blog.
59% of bloggers spend just one or two hours per week tending their blog. One in ten bloggers spend ten or more hours per week on their blog. (Pew/Internet 2006)
5. In 2006, bloggers cited very different blogging platforms
Pew/Internet asked bloggers what tools they used to build and display their blogs. Gaze on this snapshot of times past and wonder! Blogger: Blogspot are a bit like wordpress:org: wordpress.com (or vice versa—set me straight, somebody!). I guess “something else” included wordpress. So Squarespace existed in 2006? These platforms are still in use except for Microsoft FrontPage.
- LiveJournal (13%)
- MySpace (9%)
- Blogger (6%)
- Xanga (2%)
- FrontPage (2%)
- Typepad (2%)
- Blogspot (2%)
- Moveable Type (1%)
- Squarespace (1%)
- Something else (17%)
- Built own blogging software (2%)
Thanks to Pew/Internet for these insights into the world of early bloggers.
Image (c) Time Magazine copied under Fair Use provisions.
Interesting to see how much everything blogging-related has changed and you are so right about 12 years on the internet being a lifetime. It’s probably a couple of generations web-wise. Makes you wonder what the blogging world will look like in another 12 years.
Indeed. One thing we know: it will be dramatically different. So will we.
It’s the community aspect I most like, hopefully that will never change and only get stronger.
Wow. The research you’re presenting is fascinating.
Today, I actually actively seek out older bloggers, for their perspectives, their inspirations, their wisdom, just to get a glimpse. In less than a decade my birds will have flown the nest too…will I still be blogging?
Actually, I hope so. 😉
By now you will have more than a glimpse of what lies ahead, then. That’s such an unusual thing to do! Our need as older people is to continue making younger friends.
Claudette, as a (much) older blogger, I’d invite you to seek me out, but I don’t want to be the cause of turning you off older bloggers forever, so be prepared to “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!” 🙁
How intriguing that at first it was primarily an online journal. For many young poetic types that still seems to be the case. For us older ones, it generally seems more interactive with our readers and each other.
I think a personal blog for any individual may start that way and later, become a social place… not intentionally but because it can.
Yes. I have noticed though that there are a number of angst blogs which seem to disappear. I hope it is because the angst is over.
For me, unexpectedly, my blog has become part of a virtual community. That’s partly why I’m reading other blogs or writing my own posts every day. Interesting post!
I appreciate your company as I work through this task.
This is really interesting, thank you so much for doing all this research. I liked Claudette’s comments that she actively seeks out older bloggers.
I think there are many technologies that young people use, then when the oldies move in they find something else! I remember being utterly shocked when a colleague came back from social media training saying she’d been told that email was for old people. We were still moving all our library notices over to email at the time, thinking we were very modern: it was many years ago, obviously!
Now Facebook is for a mature demographic. I remember bulletin boards and dozens of once new modes of communication…
Chat rooms etc! All evolving fast, and I wonder when I will be completely left behind. As long as they don’t pull the plug on the old tech (hope WordPress is listening!)
Very interesting stats. I find it amusing that blogging gets so little attention from mainstream media.
No doubt it’s harder to track than social media that are platform-specific, such as Facebook.
Yes I guess so. I did read an article in Saturday’s Melbourne Age by a restaurant reviewer who claimed that bloggers in his field were forcing him to improve his work. An interesting twist when the so called amateurs are raising the bar.
Indeed!