2.3 million Australians have created a blog
27 February 2008
Laurel Papworth and Australian IT have alerted me to The Consumer Generated Media Report (100k PDF) by Nielsen Online who surveyed over 4,000 online users from Australia and New Zealand and have concluded that 48% of Australian internet users have read a blog, 16% of have created a blog and 15% update their blog.
Using the most recently published Nielsen//NetRatings statistics which indicate that Australia has 14,729,191 internet users, we can say that Australia has:
7,070,011 people who read blogs
2,356,670 people who have created a blog
2,209,378 people who currently update their blog
These are impressive and somewhat surprising figures. Though, I certainly dispute the create and update ratio of being just one percentage point difference. The attrition rate of blogs is much higher than that. From my small list of just 5103 active Australian blogs I have an alternate list which contains over 7000 Australian blogs that were active at some time in the last 12 months when I started maintaining the list but which are now either not currently active in the last 3 months or have been deleted/removed from the internet entirely.
Something else from the study which I take interest in was the confirmation that the top Factor influencing online consumers’ uptake of CGM activities was that Australian internet users would have to have more time. I’ve think the recent uptake of micro-blogging platforms like Tumblr as well as instant message/forum style mashup that is the web/mobile platform Twitter has been because of their easy ability to post information quickly and lower digital literacy level required to perform most tasks compared to traditional blogging platforms.
While the report is only four pages long and scant on detail, it is heartening to see some research into this area. From academics I’ve spoken to recently it seems that Universities are now starting to fund research into blogging, consumer generated media and social media so expect to see more and hopefully better studies published in the near future.
10 comments… read them below or add one
Hi Anthony,
I would imagine there’s much more detail in the report than in the 4 page media release.
Agree that attrition rates tend to be quite high.
It is probably there but I didn’t see see any upsell to a report so didn’t take in this was just the media release of their findings. *sigh* I wish open source research was being utilisied so I could take a look at the full report.
This has come at the ideal time for me so thanks for the heads up on stats. I am preparing a bloginaur on using blogs as a social consciousness raising exercise. I often get asked how many Aussies blog and I always respond, “I don’t know.”
Cheers
[...] From a Nielsen study of 4,000 Australian and New Zealand internet users, Laurel Papworth presents Australians DO blog and Anthony follows up by quantifying it - 2.3 million Australians have created a blog. [...]
I daresay one needs to purchase the full report to get more detail
Perhaps the full report reveals “how often” these blogs are updated. As you suggest, I wouldn’t be surprised if this revealed a whole different “Aussie Blogosphere”.
Hi Gavin,
Unfortunately the more than three thousand dollar price to purchase the report is a little out of my range.
So what does that 5000 represent, registered with you or harvested numbers from what seems to be out there? How does it work?
The Worst of Perth
The 5000+ active Australian blogs searchable here are blogs that have either been submitted or I have found through reading known Australian blogs and finding links to other local blogs in posts, comments and blog blogrolls which I then verify as Australian by checking the about page or emailing the author.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics report for 2006-2007 was covered in the BRW on Jan 2008 http://www.brw.com.au/viewer.aspx?ATL://1200294413075.05&magsection=Technology&portal=_Comments&title=Addicted+to+the+net
It says that 11 million Australians used the internet in that period, around 30% less than Nielsen report.
Also, given Nielsen method of generating numbers, it’s got to be a joke that they state don’t say here’s our figure with this margin of error, but quote a figure down to the 14 million, 729 thousand, “one hundred and ninety one”!.
I’m quitting my blog and the internet, so that figure may be down a bit when they next “audit”!
Hi Ben,
Though it is such a big impressive sounding figure which will certainly help move units off the shelves for Nielsen. In the next few days I’ll do a follow up post with some new aspects I’ve found out about the study and why it doesn’t really matter how many people are blogging.
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