Blogosphere to reach 10 million, but most will be dead

In what is touted as the first comprehensive study of blogging, Perseus has concluded that by 2004 there will be 10 million blogs, but that most will be dead.

Perseus is a research company that based its finding on a study of over 3,000 blogs. Perseus finds blogging is most popular with teenage girls. More than half of the weblogs surveyed are run by teenagers and 91.1 per cent are under 30. "Blogging is many things, yet the typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life," the report notes.

A large number of blogs are abandoned after a day. Most seem to be gone within a year. "Perseus' study doesn't see a 'community' as much as a graveyard. The average weblog is only updated once every fourteen days, and Perseus concludes that 'the majority of blogs started are dissolving into static, abandoned web pages.' Well, maybe people have simply got better things to do."

The survey found that most bloggers are: female, age 13-19, and that the growth rate in new blogs will drop from 606% in 2001 to 105% in 2004.

I guess Perseus is reporting something that all bloggers who stick with blogging already know: writing anything takes work. Who cares if millions of teenage girls get tired of blogging after one day? I think that whole segment of blogging can be ignored.