Now for some serious research on the online activity of blogs. The folks at Comscore Networks have released the results of a study that you might find interesting. It doesn’t have a breakout for farmers but I think you will gain some insight into even their media usage from this. I am still asked by professional marketing people “what is a blog?” and even after explaining I’m sure some of the folks I’ve spoken with still wonder if anyone would visit a “blog.” Well they do and in a serious and growing way. For example, in this study they report a 45 % increase in visits from internet users to the 400 blog domains they analyzed in the last year! I found this study thanks to a link on the Fast Company weblog. Here’s some tidbits from their news release and you can also view the full report here.
50 Million Americans Visited Blogs During the First Quarter 2005, According to New comScore Study
First Comprehensive Study of the Actual Online Behavior of Blog Visitors Now Available
RESTON, Va., Aug. 8, 2005 – comScore Networks today released a report detailing the scale, composition and activities of audiences of Weblogs, commonly known as “blogs.” The report, which was sponsored in part by Six Apart and Gawker Media, found that nearly 50 million Americans, or about 30 percent of the total U.S. Internet population, visited blogs in Q1 2005. This represents an increase of 45 percent compared to Q1 2004.
Other key findings of the Behaviors of the Blogosphere report include:
* Five hosting services for blogs each had more than 5 million unique visitors in Q1 2005, and four individual blogs had more than 1 million visitors each
* Of 400 of the largest blogs observed, segmented by eight (non-exclusive) categories, political blogs were the most popular, followed by “hipster” lifestyle blogs, tech blogs and blogs authored by women
* Compared to the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and connect to the Web on high-speed connections
* Blog readers also visit nearly twice as many web pages as the Internet average, and they are much more likely to shop online
“The fact that we found 30 percent of the online population to have visited blogs clearly underscores the commercial importance of consumer generated and driven media,” said Dan Hess, senior vice president of comScore Networks. “It’s noteworthy that while the blog audience is already quite large and growing, its demographic composition relative to the total population will appeal to many marketers.”
For more information contact Jeremy Shermak.