October 2004: 4 million blogs
April 2007: 70 million blogs |
The latest State of the Blogosphere report from Dave Sifry at Technorati came out last week. He also calls it “State of the Live Web,” which either sounds like he’s trying to get acquired by Microsoft or retiring the word “blogosphere” (don’t tell Bill Quick).
As always, Sifry places great emphasis on how many blogs Technorati is “tracking.” In October 2004, when Sifry first issued his report, it was 4 million. Now it’s 70 million.
In last October’s report — when Blog P.I. analyzed the distribution of blog types in the Technorati Top 100 — it was a mere 57 million.
In that report and (if memory serves) that report alone, Sifry offered a more interesting finding:
About 55% of all blogs are active, which means that they have been updated at least once in the last 3 months.
When you think of how many people have started blogs and then abandoned them, moved from one platform to another, or even kept multiple blogs open for various purposes, 55% is surprisingly high. Regardless, I did the math and concluded that the number of active blogs, using Sifry’s loose definition of “active,” was closer to 33 million.
If we assume that the number is still somewhere around 55%, then there are currently some 38.5 million blogs that meet at least some kind of semi-active status.
Sifry does offer the number of blog postings for particular periods, but he does not specifically include this number in this report — though a German blogger and a French blogger clamor for it in the comments — and he hasn’t previously offered further breakdowns: How many blogs have updated in the past month? Week? 24 hours?
These numbers would tell us a lot more about how big the blogosphere is than the supposedly awe-inspiring but mostly skepticism-inducing count 70 million “tracked.” Yes, we know what Technorati is doing, but since you’re in a position to tell us, how many active blogs are there really?
P.S. Jordan McCullum at Marketing Pilgrim tried crunching the numbers another way:
We know that popular blogs can post multiple times per day, anywhere from 5 to 20—and other active blogs may post only once every few days or once a week. If we took a stab in the dark and said that the average was once every three days (skewed to the right by the high number of “less active” blogs), that would mean that only 4.5 million of the 70 million blogs out there are “active,” or 6%. Seems a bit low, wouldn’t you say?
On any given day? That would be 11.7% of the blogs updated in the past three months. Sounds plausible to me, but only Dave Sifry knows for sure.
Its chances for real success are iffy, and politicans’ blogs are notoriously bad. Wizbang’s Weblog Awards understandably 
Probably Elizabeth or: Comment Registration Makes Good Neighbors
Since last week, D.G. Hall (née Joe Tobacco) of Cadillac Tight has been trying to nail down the identities of a couple of interesting commenters on his blog, who abruptly appeared this past week, then just as abruptly left. And you probably already know exactly who one of them is.
If nothing else, it was an off-message moment for John Edwards’ campaign and for Elizabeth (or as we like to call her, EE) as well.
Hall noticed the story and posted an excerpt, “wondering” why the leftosphere hadn’t noticed this. On which post, of all people, EE (or someone purporting to be her) left a comment advancing her side of the story:
Hall welcomed her to the site and asked for confirmation that she really said of Johnson, “I wouldn’t be nice to him, anyway.” The following morning, EE responded once more:
To which another commenter asked:
EE didn’t return, and as of Friday afternoon, that was that. Until yesterday, that is, when the same post received a comment from one Ronda Johnson, claiming to be the daughter of old man Johnson:
There’s something curious about the fact that every single one of Ms. Johnson’s sentences ends with an exclamation point! It doesn’t exactly come across as a sign of sincerity! Nor does the “silky pony” reference! But you never know, maybe Ronda Johnson reads blogs! After all, Elizabeth Edwards does!
Plus, there is a Ronda Johnson listed (Google her name, or call their new 411 service) as living in Raleigh. Same h-less spelling, too. Hall tried calling it, but couldn’t get an answer.
Hall had also matched EE’s e-mail address to other plausible EE registrations, such as one at My Left Wing. The address (Hall says the account is bouncing now) is probablyElizabeth at johnedwards.com, perhaps mischievously, suggesting the user knew other blog readers would question its provenance. Plus, being a minor scholar of EE’s blogospheric participaticipation, I’d say it certainly sounds like her.
As Hall graciously notes in his wrap-up post, he contacted me and I lived up to the name of this blog by matching the IP addresses to the possible commenters’ probable locations. As he puts it:
That sounds about right. Could be both, maybe even neither — but it’s probably at least one of them (EE), and someone who knows the other one (RJ). If all is as it seems, an AP story reporting some offhand comments fueled a lingering resentment between two neighboring families, subsequently breaking out into the comment section of an interested but uninvolved blogger.
Heck, they’re practically the Montagues and Capulets of the Research Triangle. Sort of not really. But just think of how it’ll play at the next PTA night.
Bonus observation! Fifteen years ago, there wasn’t a blogosphere to hash out neighborly disputes like this one. But they did have something arguably better.