Technorati on Blogging in 2008

Technorati the blog tracking service is doing a daily roundup of main topics under its State of the Blogosphere 2008 report.

Some highlights:

• In looking at the just over 5 million blogs tracked by Technorati who posted in June, 45% have a Technorati Authority number of 1 or more
  
• Hundreds of thousands of individual blogs, which make up the top 10% of blogs as measured by Technorati Authority, and more than 75,000 bloggers have an authority of 50 or more — meaning at least 50 other bloggers found their content worth linking to.
  
• Four out of five bloggers are personal bloggers who blog about topics of personal interest. About half of bloggers are professional bloggers — blogging is not necessarily their full-time job, but they blog about their industry or profession in an unofficial capacity. 12% of bloggers blog in an official capacity for their company.
  
• Of course, these groups are not mutually exclusive. More than half of professional and corporate bloggers are also personal bloggers. This could be on a separate blog, or they may blog about personal interests within their professional blog.
  

Some segregations based on gender and geography. Interestingly Asian bloggers are much better at monetizing their blogs!

• The majority of bloggers openly expose their identities on their blogs and recognize the positive impact that blogging has on their personal and professional lives. More than half are now better known in their industry and one in five have been on TV or the radio because of their blog. Blogging has brought many unique opportunities to these bloggers that would not have been available in the pre-blog era.
  
• Three-quarters of bloggers cover three or more topics. The average number of topics blogged about is five.
  
• There were some global differences. Music is more popular and politics is less popular in Asia, while personal, lifestyle, and religious topics are less popular in Europe.
  
• Asian bloggers tend to be more motivational and confessional, while European bloggers are more confrontational. Women tend to be more conversational in their blogging style, while men tend to be expert. Finally, those under 34 are more confessional in their blogging style, while those over 35 are more expert in their style.
  
• 82% look to more than one means to measure the success of their blog, with the average blogger looking at four distinct metrics. Personal satisfaction is by far the most popular measure of success
  
• The majority of corporate and professional bloggers have seen a positive impact as a result of their blog. Half are better known in their industry, and one in four have used their blog as a resume enhancement. Fewer than one in ten have seen a negative impact from blogging and one in three have yet to see an impact.
  
• Half of bloggers attend events (e.g., movies, conferences, sporting events) for their blog. Among those bloggers who attend events, one third do so for free. One third of bloggers have received free products.
  
• Top audience-building strategies include: listing their blog on Technorati and Google, commenting or linking to other blogs, and tagging blog posts so that they are more easily searchable. All of this hard work has paid off — half of active blogs attract more than 1000 monthly visitors.
  
• Blogs with higher authority are typically updated more frequently than blogs with lower authority. The Technorati Top 100 blogs had more than twice as many postings in June 2008 as the next 500, and more than 12 times as many postings as the next 5000.
  
• Among those with widgets, the majority of bloggers use at least four widgets on their site and two-thirds would include a widget with an ad on their blog.
  
• Among those blogs with RSS feeds, three in four support full-content feeds.
  
• In order to retain visitors to their blogs, sophisticated bloggers are creating readership events.
  
• The majority of these events are in person, with one in five personal bloggers hosting an in-person event and one-third of corporate bloggers hosting an in-person event.
  
• Google Analytics is the most common tracking tool (used by 2/3 of bloggers)
  
• Bloggers with advertising invest significantly more money in their blogs than bloggers who do not accept advertising. The mean investment in blogs is $1,000 over the past year. However, the median investment is only $50.