MySpace survey

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MySpace survey

Amonth ago it was reported that one in three 14–21-year-olds in the UK have a blog (the survey actually revealed that one in three 14–21-year-olds with an internet connection at home have maintained some kind of website or blog). Now across the pond there is a report that says “One in Five Teens Have Own Blogs,” via Weblog Tools Collection, who points out that it is an exaggeration. Once again the survey showed that it was in fact one in five 12–17-year-olds with an internet connection who had a blog.
A lot of people are surprised, nevertheless, that these figures are so high. Personally, I’m surprised they aren’t higher. It comes down to the age-old problem of defining what a blog actually is. In my view, when people talk about the ‘blogosphere’ they are talking pure nonsense. Bloggers aren’t just one mass of people who all act in the same way, as the word ‘blogosphere’ suggests — they’re all completely different to each other, just like, for instance, book authors. You have the bloggers who write about politics, and other bloggers who write about something completely different like, say, underwear. A lot of bloggers who write about subjects like politics or technology (and the readers of those blogs) perhaps forget about the significant chunk of bloggers who, as the cliché goes, write about what they had for breakfast — the type of blog that actually fits the “online diary” description easily.
Blog’ is such a trendy buzzword these days. All sorts of crummy things get described as blogs. Most people, when they hear the word blog, probably aren’t worried about whether or not it’s got RSS feeds, trackbacks or even comments (or whatever else you might use to distinguish blogs from other websites). What they see is a shiny, tinselly buzzword. Cast the net wide; use a loose definition of the word ‘blog’, then think about the survey results.

Even forgetting how easy it is to set up an account at Blogger, there are loads of ways that young people could almost accidentally become bloggers. For instance, everybody with an MSN Messenger account automatically has an MSN Spaces account. Immediately they have the capacity to be a blogger — all they have to do is write one experimental post out of curiosity and then they can answer “yes, I am a blogger” in the survey. How about Myspace? In terms of page views, it is apparently the biggest website there is, and it’s heaving with young people. It also has its own blogging feature. And even if a Myspace user doesn’t write a post in the blog section, the mere fact that they have a Myspace profile could mean they could answer “yes, I have a website” to the survey.

So I’m surprised there aren’t even more young people who describe themselves as having a blog or a website. Blogger, LiveJournal, MSN, Myspace — I think it’s fair to say that these services are aimed mainly at young people, and it is extraordinarily easy to get going with any of these, or similar, sites. And they are all used by a massive amount of people writing about what they had for breakfast on them. Personally, I’m surprised that the figure isn’t closer to 50%.

Here you will find survey

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