According to a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project,
27 percent of adult U.S. Internet users -- some 32 million people --
read weblogs, and more than 8 million have created blogs of their
own.
Project director Lee Rainie said blogs have become "a key part of online culture." The project's national telephone surveys used random samples of a total population estimated at 120 million Internet users.
Rainie said the blog-reading population increased 58 percent between
Pew surveys taken in February and November. On the other hand, the
survey reported that 62 percent of Internet users (unlike you) don't
know what a weblog is.
In addition to Web browsers, about 6 million readers are using RSS
aggregator software to get news and blog content delivered regularly,
the Pew report said. This is the first time Pew has had an RSS question on its surveys. Rainie called RSS users "classic early adopters: veteran internet users, well-educated, and relatively heavy online news consumers." For background see my links in the left column of this page, especially What are RSS and that orange XML thing?
(Thanks to Dan Gillmor and one of his readers for pointing out the plain Web page version of the report at the project's funding agency, pewtrusts.org. Pewinternet.org site makes a PDF version easier to find, but less convenient to skim quickly online.)
1:33:36 AM 
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