Why do people blog?
If you are a blogger I’m sure you have been asked why you blog and also why do others blog. This question is not easy to answer. I decided to find out why people and went to my trusted resource Google.
Dane Taylor in his blog mentions that he writes or blogs for personal pleasure only. Way back in 2004 Sandhill had the same question and when he asked his fellow bloggers why they blog the answer he got was the pleasure of sharing or having their comments on different things on the Internet was the main reason why most of the bloggers blog. Victoria Carrington classifies the reason why people blog based on the type of blog one writes for. You can read the list here. Though the list is not complete I would agree with Victoria in general.
One of the websites or blog that impressed me the most was Chris Garrets. He has conducted a survey to find out why people blog, their demographics and blogging trends in general. A background of Chris is important as that makes the survey more credible.
Chris Garrett is a professional blogger, Internet Marketing Consultant, new media industry commentator, writer, coach, speaker, trainer and web geek. He was also a founding member of Performancing. You might know him from his past writing for such sites as ASPToday, ASPAlliance, Threadwatch, or more recently, ProBlogger, The Blog Herald, FreelanceSwitch, Cogniview, AdSavvy and CopyBlogger.
Top ten readers who best answered the questions in the survey were awarded a Pro Blogger book! The findings of the survey are interesting (please be aware that these statistics are for 2008)
- The number of people who started blogging was the highest in 2007. Though the number of blogs started in 2008 is less but one has to keep in mind that only half of the year has gone by.
- About 75% of the bloggers started blogging after 2005.
- 62% of the responders to the survey were males.
- USA has the most number of bloggers followed by UK.
- Most of the bloggers have higher education.
- 30% of the respondents were between 20-30 years whereas 50% of them were between the ages of 30-50 years.
- 50% of the bloggers blog for pleasure
- 35% of the respondents blogged for business
- Only 4% of the bloggers blogged for money.
While the results are very interesting one has to keep in mind that it has been assumed that the respondents are a good representation of bloggers around the world. This assumption means that the results are not perfect representation of the blogging community but one can safely assume that the survey results are indicative of the trends. To access the full report of the survey please go to http://www.chrisg.com/survey/.
In the end it is safe to assume that majority of the bloggers blog for pleasure and this is true for me. It would be great if you can share why you blog by adding comments.
