Results of a study (pdf) from crmmetrix, conducted from June 26th to June 28th, 2006, with a sample of 795 respondents, representative of French Internet users:
"French Internet users who consult blogs regularly do so to get information (74.4%), to share experiences (57%), and to look for advice (56.7%), and the phenomenon crosses age groups - 70.3% of 16-24 years olds and 40.5% of 35 years olds have visited a blog to get information."
"More than one-quarter (26.7%) of the French online population visit a blog at least once a month. One in 5 (18.8%) have posted a comment on a blog and 8.1% have created their own blog. Thanks to blogs, Internet users can become ‘co-creators’ of the Web and, subsequently, of the world, as onliners agree that blogs enable the greatest freedom of expression (92.2%), are both reactive and interactive (81.3%), create a closest possible relationship between people (75.7%), and are considered more critical than any other source of information (62.9%)."
The next edition of the "Barometer Blogosphere" is planned for the second fortnight of September 2006, when USA data will be available as well.
Comments
Interesting research Marie.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
I wonder if any study has been conducted on how blogs are catching fire in Australia.
I believe crikey.com.au is a good example of an Aussie blog (is it actually a blog or a news site?) which has become a discussion board for Aussie journalists.
Posted by: Emilio Simbillo | August 11, 2006 04:07 PM
I'm beginning to think you can't talk about 'blogs' as an entity; there are so many blogs being kept for so many different reasons. The current affairs ones like crikey.com may be prominent, but I suspect that the hobby and life blogs (eg gardening, knitting, renovation, food etc) may have a bigger readership. But they seem to slip below the radar because they somehow aren't seen as 'serious', even though they sometimes build communities of dozens to hundreds of regular readers. That's what I think is really interesting - how involved people are getting in the web as a leisure activity.
Posted by: M-H | October 4, 2006 09:11 AM