Drowning in blogs
Here are some facts from the current issue of The New Statesman which may or may not cheer you up this grim Tuesday:
- There are 1.6 billion estimated internet users worldwide.
- There are 109.2 million blogs.
- 99% of blogs have no readers.
But if a blog has no readers, is it really a blog?
Tags: whimsy
May 5th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Yikes! Makes me feel fortunate for the nice visitors who stop by and read my blog…
May 5th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Sometimes I get very upset that only two people have commented on an entry. But the dashboard tells me about 80 people a day visit my blog. So why don’t they comment? I’m as guilty of this as the next man though, and sometimes I think I may run out of steam altogether and abandon my blog. Is it just a craze after all?
May 5th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Or further to FC’s point – I alway get baffled that sites like Funky 16 corners – get over 1000 visits a day but only about two comments …
May 5th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
most creative endaevours are unpopular, most tunes on itunes never get downloaded, most so called big name biographies sell a few thousand copies Most games of football have no spectators, I suppose what I’m saying is popular things are rare.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
sorry the evidence was in front of me just caught the second half of this programme all networks have hubs works for actors (as weknow) but also disease and i assume popular vs not so popular blogs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kdtvv/Six_Degrees_of_Separation/
May 5th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Hello Jim and welcome, I like the irony of you commenting on this particular post so thanks for popping by.
F-C, For heavens sake!!! Don’t even think about abandoning your blog, you know what happened last time and you know that we’d all miss you. I think that you have a very nice sense of community around your blog and I wouldn’t worry about people commenting (or not) in the slightest – they’re (read: ‘I’m') probably intimidated by your productivity rate. Having said that, I am intrigued by lurking readers myself (hello there!).
PM, good point. I think music blogs fit into a category of their own now where people feel that all that free online music is just there for them and they don’t necessarily have to say hello or thank you. I suspect that you must suffer from this quite abit yourself?
BLTP, It IS about networks and popularity ratings systems (as the New Stateman’s article says too). Not to mention relevance and sheer unbridled marketing. Who wants to be popular though? If popularity equates to hundreds of inane comments on the Guardian blog then I prefer my small niche of 10 delightful, intelligent and sane readers right here.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
That’s why I’m so glad I’ve got great readers, such as yourself, who stop by and comment on my blog posts.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Exactly Keith, exactly. Although I suspect that the numbers are a bit wrong. I mean how many of those 109.2 million blogs are still updated regularly?
May 6th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
It seems that some blogs can generate a huge number of inane or mindlessly argumentative comments with almost no effort. As you say Cocktails, the Guardian one seems to attract a huge number of followers who have too much time on their hands, too little to say but no qualms about saying it anyway. Radio phone-ins are a no-go area for me for the same reason.
I agree that a small number of more pithy/insightful/humourous comments (see examples above) is much preferable.
Having said that, it would be gratifying to have more than the three existing readers I know about…
May 6th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I have a soft spot for radio phone-ins Hoops. I’m not sure why as I think they bring out the worst in a country. Have you ever had the privilege of listening to any Australian ones? They give new meaning to the words ‘bigoted’, ‘deranged’ and ‘conspiracy theory’, and are amusing in a depressing way.
Actually, I think I prefer ‘Down the Line’ on R4…
And remember, it’s quality not quantity Hoops!
May 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Like several of the others here, having read your post I feel very lucky that I have a little bunch of readers (and a littler bunch of commentators). All those other unread blogs, whispering into the ether..it’’s too sad!
As for radio phone-ins, I used to be mesmerised as a kid by the one Brian Hayes used to present on BBC Radio London. This was in the days when Beeb presenters were free to say “I’m going to cut you off now, because you are very very thick.”
May 7th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I don’t understand how cutting off thick people works on a radio phone-in. Surely that’s where the ‘entertainment’ value comes from? Thick people and loonies with conspiracy theories. Where would phone-ins and indeed, newspaper comments boards, be without them?
May 12th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
99% unread??!! that is TOO sad!! Like some have already said, I have mixed feelings… grateful that people bother to pop by, and sometimes disheartened by the lack of comments compared to the number my stats tell me have visited. I sometimes see people have been on my blog for 3 or 4 hours, looked at 40+ pages, and still don’t bother to leave a message!!! But y’know, I think a lot of people haven’t ‘got’ they subtle difference between blogs and websites. I see blogs are an interactive website, but I guess many see it as a standard “found what i wanted now I’m off’ type thing…..
Interesting post.
P
May 12th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Now that is a good point Piley, lots of people probably do see blogs and websites as being the same thing. Like you, I think that the beauty of blogs is the interactivity and the sense of community. Having said that, there are people out there who don’t ever respond to comments or questions on their blogs so… maybe its difficult for the casual visitor to get that sense, I don’t know. Sigh…