A few new pieces of information in this latest Pew Internet Study on blogs.

*Blog readership shoots up 58% in 2004
*6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators
*But 62% of online Americans do not know what a blog is.

The percentage of bloggers in the US has grown from the 2002 study to 7% in the November study. The demographics of the over 5 million blogs look like this:

• Men: 57% are male
• Young: 48% are under age 30
• Broadband users: 70% have broadband at home
• Internet veterans: 82% have been online for six years or more
• Relatively well off financially: 42% live in households earning over $50,000
• Well educated: 39% have college or graduate degrees

Just more of the same players.
US political blogs continue to enjoy the majority jump in the US readership.
What is changing slowly is the type of readership.

Blog readers are somewhat more of a mainstream group than bloggers themselves. Like bloggers, blog readers are more likely to be young, male, well educated, internet veterans. Still, since our survey February, there has been greater-than-average growth in blog readership among women, minorities, those between the ages of 30 and 49, and those with home dialup connections.

Pew Reports cover the USA only.

What I would really like to see over the next year or so is
* research firms in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe do the same kind of study Pew Research has is doing.
* If I knew who had the skills and research money in Canada I’d propose such a study. Surely sociology and media departments in universities could conduct similar studies.
* Newpapers, broadcast media, political parties and corporations in Canada hire firms or use their employees to search blogs. Much of that is done for product mention, or testing the polical talk. The results are sent directly to the companies.
* And I would really like to see better studies than Michelle (Canadian)and my demographics study have been able to do to date on the growth of god-blogs and faith blogs, by a reputable and skilled research group that has the funding.
* it would be terrific to see that study include several countries.

I’ve seen steady and slow growth in god-blogs, but in comparing them against the Pew Research, they make up a very, very small percentage of the blogosphere.
It’s somewhat safe to say a couple of thousand god-blogs are visible online since the two studies were done, with more god-blogs below the aggregator radar.
* I’ve seen no studies out of the US on none US blogs. If you know of any, let me know.
* Would these bloggers be a more mixed demographic?
* Would international god-blogs find themselves in the same minority position in their countires or are the numbers higher or lower in comparison to the US?
We’ll only know when organizations with trained personnel take a look and report their findings.
* I don’t think god-blogs are on the radar of religious groups that can track communication trends.

* Few churches have used the internet productively.
They continue to lag behind.
* God-zines have done a bit better, but again, we are looking mostly at US online magazines.

We know over 3 million people go online daily looking for spiritual information.
Why aren’t more research groups looking at what they are finding in god-blogs?