Blogs and the Iraq War David Brake digs through the The Internet & the Iraq War report released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project is releasing today a new report:
Despite the media coverage of weblogs, Pew finds they are barely on the radar of most Americans:
"Some 4% of online Americans report going to blogs for information and opinions. The overall number of blog users is so small that it is not possible to draw statistically meaningful conclusions about who uses blogs. The early data suggest that the most active Internet users, especially those with broadband connections are the most likely to have found blogs they like. " Pew's research suggests between one and four percent of Americans publish online depending on what you ask - 1% "Create a web log or "blog" that others can read online" while 4% "Create content for the Internet, such as helping build a web site, creating an online diary, or posting your thoughts online". That could even just include posting your thoughts to someone else's messageboard.
To my mind this emphasises the importance of making the weblog and other content publishing tools we have easier and promoting the possibilities they offer over making the tools more sophisticated (though we should be doing both).
Of course making them work multilingually is also going to be key to international adoption, and making them work well offline (so you don't have to compose while connected).
The report also found that "blogs seem to be catching on with younger Internet users – those under age 30 – at a greater pace than with older Internet users."
This latest survey is consistent with my estimates of over 3 million bloggers and adoption in significant growth areas such as youth. What the report doesn't highlight is the influential role weblogs have on the media.
David is right that there is much work to be done with the tools, but we shouldn't discount the relative influence of weblogs in shaping (this war) and sustaining (Trent Lott) memes.
6:59:08 AM 
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