Data Shows English Blogosphere Has Peaked

The data junkies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County have crunched some numbers that seem to show that the English blogosphere has peaked. Although their methodology isn't very scientific (they count up references of the word "I"), it's hard to dispute this data.

Comments

[lonelybloggers]

Not a big surprise really. Blogging activity partially depends on what's going on in the world -- Blogs get forgotten over time (people get lazy etc).. But the blogs themselves don't die completely ....

With the Presidential elections coming around again in 2008, people will be dusting off their keyboards and likely back to blogging as a result. Lots of interesting candidates and issues like the Iraq war -- The next election may be won online, so look for blogging to pick up again through late 2007 and then really take off again in 2008.

(I also think blogging levels could decline again after the next election!).. Regardless, Blogads.com is gonna love selling all of that political inventory... Just my 2 cents, but blogging numbers again will remain flat probably until later in 2007.

[Paul Fabretti]

WOW! I am surprised to see so many English blog posts at all - almost everyone I know hasn't even heard of them - let alone use or produce them. That said, with the BBC referencing and creating their own blogs, I wonder just how much they make up of the search results?

BUT, could this simply be the calm before the storm? I have long believed we are at least 2 years behind the US in terms of online "envelope pushing" and any blog activity up to now has simply been early-adopters.

As a result, when it hits mainstream adoption (2-way blogging instead of inbound blogging) I think we could see a BIG increase.

My wife is typical of this. A keen make-up, celeb gossip and film fan, I introduced her to google reader and a couple of blogs.

10 minutes later she has started subscribing to feeds and using GR no problem at all.

This in turn will lead to outbound activity (i.e. contribution) and maybe even blogging herself.

[Josh Bernoff]

Maybe people just aren't as self-abosorbed as they used to be.

Naaah, that can't be it . . .

[Mythophile]

IMO we're seeing the new wear off of the idea. At least for the early adopters. They've started posting when they have something to talk about, not just "because".

[jp]

Or maybe they've all just switched languages...

[Kai]

There are so many poorly researched and badly written blogs, not to mention the well-known flogs, the annoying splogs, and the rarely updated blogs. Sure, blogs can be entertaining and informative and also serve as excellent PR tools – but only if they provide unique and credible content that is of value to the reader. But creating such high-quality content takes time, effort and journalistic skills.

It seems that for every good blog, there are hundreds of useless blogs. I call this “The Blogosphere’s Ozonhole” and it’s still getting bigger and bigger. I’m afraid it will cause a climate change in journalistic standards. Writers and readers alike are already getting used to short-lived five sentence “articles” that could eventually completely replace in-depth reporting. Let’s hope that newspapers will not become like blogs, because they have to compete with them for readers and advertising dollars. Who will investigate an issue for days or months if there’s no audience left for real journalism, which is absolutely indispensable for a democratic society.

[Doug Karr]

I believe what is missing is the implementation of corporate blogs and aggregation blogs. These blogs are less apt to utilize 'I' because they speak to an organization or to a technology. They are less likely to be personal.