346 million people are reading blogs (state of the Blogosphere 2008)

Technorati has released its report, State of the Blogosphere / 2008, providing a view on the growth and application of blogs as a medium.

The report can be summed up in the statement "blogging is here to stay".

Notable to me in the report was that the fifth top topic and sixth most used tag was 'politics', and most of the other top twenty topics and tags were areas in which government has a significant influence and role.

While 12% of bloggers reported that they did so officially for their organisations, there was no breakdown between public or private organisations.

My assumption, based on my own observances, would be that the share of public sector bloggers would be highest in the US and Europe (where guidelines are in place and there is political and senior civil service support for blogging) and lowest in Australia (where guidelines are not yet in place).

Given the level of blog discourse already occurring on topics related to government services, perhaps Australian agencies need to more closely consider blogging as a communication and interaction tool.

Report highlights

• Technorati has indexed more that 122 million blogs since 2002,
  
• Bloggers are creating almost one million blog posts per day,
  
• Four in five bloggers post reviews of products or brands that they love (or hate),
  
• One-third of bloggers have been approached by companies to be brand advocates,
  
• 95% of the Top 100 US newspapers have journalist blogs (if you can't beat them, join them),
  
• 50% of bloggers receive more than 1,000 unique visitors per month, with 18% receiving more than 10,000,
  
• The more active a blog is, the greater its visibility and traffic, and
  
• Two-thirds of bloggers do so under their real identity.

Blogger demographics

• 36% of bloggers are aged 25-34 and 27% are 35-44. 23% are 45 or older,
  
• Two-thirds are male,
  
• 44% are parents,
  
• 70% have undergraduate degrees or higher, and
  
• 40% have incomes in excess of US$75,000 per year.

Blog types

• 79% of bloggers post on personal matters (topics of personal interest not associated with their work)
  
• 46% post on professional topics (about their industry and profession but not in an official capacity for their employer) - such as this blog
  
• 12% post on corporate topics (blog for their employer in an official capacity)

Top blog topics

• 54% blog about personal/lifestyle areas
  
• 46% blog about technology
  
• 42% blog about news
  
• 35% blog about politics

Benefits of professional/corporate blogging

• 54% say they have received increased professional recognition (better known in their industry),
  
• 26% have used their blog as a resume/reference in job seeking,
  
• 16% have more executive visibility within their organisation,
  
• 11% got promoted as a result of their blogging,
  
• 2% were fired or put on probation as a result of something they blogged about.