Posted on 08/08/2005 4:13:34 PM PDT by kristinn
U.S. blog readership in the first quarter jumped 45 percent to 49.5 million people, or one-sixth of the total U.S. population, a report said Monday, suggesting the blogosphere is becoming increasingly alluring to online advertisers.
The increase means 30 percent of U.S. Internet users visited blog sites in the quarter, according to the comScore Media Metrix report.
In the quarter, Googles Blogspot had 19 million unique visitors, which comScore noted was more than big mainstream media sites NYTimes.com, USAToday.com, and WashingtonPost.com. However, these visitors were spread around Blogspots millions of individual sites.
As far as advertisers are concerned, blog readers are a desirable demographicyoung, wealthy, likely to shop online, and with high-speed Internet connections. They visit 77 percent more web pages than the average Internet user.
The most popular blogs were Free Republic with 3.6 million visitors, Drudge Report with 2.3 million, Fleshbot (a Gawker Media blog) with 1.2 million, followed by Gawker and Fark, both with 1.1 million. Regularly updated blogs won a huge portion of the overall visits. Drudge Report alone had 44.3 million visits.
Most popular were political blogs followed by hipster lifestyle blogs, tech blogs, and blogs written by women, comScore noted.
However, blog readership tails off rather quickly, with the majority of blogs having under 100 visitors a day, according to Rick Bruner, director of research for DoubleClick, who co-authored the comScore report.
The comScore data does not address these smaller blogs as many are merged with all the other blogs hosted by the same domain, as in the case of Six Aparts TypePad. Others simply did not make the cut, as the list was limited to the Top 400 most-trafficked blog domains. All but one of the blog domains used in the report had more than 1,000 unique visitors.
Down the Food Chain
In Mr. Bruners opinion, the high price of advertising on top sites will lead companies to start looking deeper down the food chain for more affordable advertising. He estimated that about half of total page views on the Internet are to small sites.
Last week, Technorati announced that it had measured 14.2 million blogs, 55 percent of them active, about double the amount in March. The company counted 900,000 new posts per day in July, nearly double the amount in January (see Blogs: 900,000 Posts a Day).
Mr. Bruner said that the Technorati numbers give credence to comScores report. But, he said, Theyre not really comparable. Technorati can spider links, but they cant actually look at traffic.
An international report that combines blog creation with blog readerships of all sizes has yet to be completed.
The comScore report was sponsored by Six Apart and blog network Gawker Media.
OX how do I get my number?
Right! And we all wear pajamas. lol
Read my #116, we have the same thoughts on this matter.
Click here:
FR is a very positive part of my life.
And I spend waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time here :)
Top right corner in "more" next to mail.
Try this Dog
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/my/
Completely agree. Why not use our space and our visibility to promote CONSERVATIVE businesses/publications. Keep the scope small, start with just the conservative advocates you mentioned. Keep the Ben & Jerry's of the world OUT.
I'm glad we're way up there, but this is preposterous. Drudge probably gets a couple million hits per day.
Yay----Jim! You created a winner!
and yay, all ya'll freepers, for making this happen for all of us!!!
Click on "More" up in the upper right hand corner.
That gets you to your Personal Menu. It's right there.
It is an entertaining website.
You've posted a total of 710 threads and 61,278 replies
I don't have a life it seems...:-)
Thanks!
ping
Really? CNN said Kos, was?
I didn't see Kos listed in the above article, did I?
I just don't get it. Fr is not a blog.
Maybe if I read all 150+ comments, someone will explain it to me.
LOL. I know! Now only if we had grammar check! :-)
I don't think we are a blog...but anytime we are put #1, I'll take it!
You've posted a total of 1,899 threads and 2,439 replies.
Geez, I've been here way too long....
Thanks guys. You really did a lot to save America, and it is much appreciated.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.