As part of one of my current research projects interviewing feminist bloggers, I attended a Blogher conference over the weekend. BlogHer.com is a syndicate of 1,500 blogs written by women. At the opening session, one of the organizers discussed some interesting stats about women blogging from a recent random sample survey. The survey, conducted in 2008 by Compass Media with Blogher, sampled 1,250 female Internet users through a nationally representative panel, and 5,000 visitors to BlogHer’s network. Here’s some of what they found:
- 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week (15.1 publishing, 21.1 reading and commenting)?
- Women are so passionate about blogging that large percentages of women said they would give something up to keep the blogs they read and/or write:
– 55% would give up alcohol
– 50% would give up their PDAs
– 42% would give up their i-Pod
– 43% would give up reading the newspaper or magazines
- More than half of women surveyed consider blogs a reliable source of advice and information
You can download a presentation with more about that survey here. One of the things I found most interesting about the opening remarks was that among women who blogging at Blogher, 43% are watching less television to keep up with the blogosphere. I find that’s generally true for me. What about you – blogging more (including reading more) and watching the tube less?