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Younger Americans Lead Blogging
Most global bloggers are between the ages of 21 and 35 and located in the US, according to new data from social media consulting firm Sysomos.
Three in Four Bloggers Younger than 36
Slightly more than half (53.3%) of bloggers are in the 21-to-35 age demographic. Bloggers age 20 and younger are the next-largest age segment (20.2%), closely followed by 36-to-50-year-olds (19.4%). Only 7.1% of bloggers are age 51 or older.
These statistics mean that almost 75% of bloggers are 35 or younger, and more than nine in 10 are younger than 51. This is not especially surprising given general internet usage demographics. In addition, 21-to-35-year-olds came of age during the peak of blogging’s popularity and influence earlier this decade. Younger bloggers are probably more involved in social media than in blogging, and many 36-to-50-year-olds may be late adopters.
Blogging is Gender Neutral
A fractional majority (50.9%) of bloggers are women, suggesting blogging is essentially a gender neutral activity. Men’s tendencies toward using technology and women’s tendencies toward communication and social networking may be canceling each other out in this case.
Three in 10 Bloggers Based in US
It should not be much of a surprise that the most bloggers (29.2%) are located in the US. In fact, there are more than four times as many bloggers in the US as there are in the second-most-populated country within the blogosphere - the UK, which is home to 6.75% of bloggers.
Japan accounts for the third-most bloggers (4.9%), followed by Brazil (4.2%), Canada (3.9%), Germany (3.3%), Italy (3.2%), Spain (3.1%), France (2.9%) and Russia (2.3%).
Sysomos notes that there are many similarities between global blogging patterns and global Twitter usage patterns. The biggest difference was activity by US users. More than half of the tweets come from US Twitter users, while only one-third of blog posts are from the US. The absence of bloggers from Indonesia and Australia within the top 10 is also interesting. In comparison, both countries rank among the top 10 of users within the Twittersphere.
CA, NY, ON Leading States/Provinces
When data on where bloggers are located is broken down regionally, California leads the way with 14.1%. This is almost double the amount of bloggers found in the state with the second-largest blogger population, New York (7.1%).
In a bit of a surprise, the Canadian province of Ontario ranked third with 5.6%, followed by Colorado (5.2%), Texas (4.37%), Pennsylvania (4.34%), Florida (4.2%), Washington (3.4%), Illinois (2.6%), Georgia (2.1%) and Virginia (2%). Among the other Canadian provinces, British Columbia is home to 1.65% of bloggers, while Quebec has 1.42%.
Social Networking Accounts for 23% of UK Web Time
Although the UK significantly lags the US in blogging, as overall UK web usage has dramatically risen, so has its social networking activity, according to recent data from The Nielsen Company.
In April 2010, social networking and blogs accounted for 23% of UK internet time, or 13 minutes and 36 seconds of every online hour, according to the UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM), a division of Nielsen. This is up 159% from the 8.8% of UK internet time represented by social networking and blogs in April 2007.
Social networking and blogs has become the largest specific use of UK internet time, with only “other” taking up more time (36.8%, or 22 minutes and six seconds of every online hour).
About the Data: Sysomos analyzed more than 100 million blog posts that provided information about their age, gender and location information.
