More Blogs Than People

There was a very interesting Q&A with Derek Gordon of Technati in yesterday's Chicago Tribune. Patrick T. Reardon, a staff reporter for the newspaper, asked the question that every blogger asks them self when they hit that "publish post" button:Is anybody reading this? Turns out, the answer is: probably not.

"Q Any idea how many of the 109.2 million blogs you (Technorati)track get no hits in the course of a year?

A Just over 99 percent. The vast majority of blogs exist in a state of total or near-total obscurity."

Some bloggers might find that depressing. Me, I think it means that any hit I get is beating the odds, and I'm darn happy about that.

Mr. Reardon also asked about the ratio of blogs to people. I know a lot of people in my real (non internet) life that have blogs, but I know a lot more who don't have them. I'm guessing that's true for most people. But, factor in all the folks that have more than one blog, and suddenly...

".....there is one blog for every 23 people with Internet access (based on the May 2007 estimate by eMarketer that more than 1 billion people use the Web)."

So, how soon until there's a blog for every person in the world?

"It is likely that the number of registered blogs will one day exceed the number of people who have Internet access, but one cannot extrapolate that, therefore, each of those persons actually has and uses a blog. The combination of spam blogs and individuals with multiple blogs means that the total volume of registered blogs will easily, one day, exceed even the total number of people on Earth, even if only some fraction of those people are, in fact, bloggers."

After reading that, and the other numbers about inactive blogs, I had a very strong urge to delete an old LiveJournal account. That's one less dead blog jacking up the numbers.

What not to say when you can't think of anything to say

I've been doing a lot of browsing around the world of blogs, trying to get some inspiration on what I'd like this blog to be. Right now, it's a resting place for my mini-reviews, but those could go somewhere else. What do I want under my own, real name? Ideally (which is based on idea, so I might have already made my choice, eh?) I'd like it t be about my writing life, but I'm just not ready to take that leap yet.

What I have found is here interesting post about what not to blog, from ProBlogger.net. I have to admit, lists sound like a great way to go, and it never occurred to me that you could blow your entire wad with one long list. Good to know.

What also never occurred to me is that the case of the blogger who was an overnight success in the blog would, then had nothing left to write about. That's equivalent to the one hit wonder rookie novelist, and I would guess just as rare. Does anyone really? make the front page of Digg the first time out, then have nothing more to say? Hell, at least talk about what that felt like...there's a whole new topic.