The Secret Life of Bloggers

Two interesting reports/articles on the web with a similar theme about content creation and social software on the Internet:

• Picked up by Anecdote (and many others), the Guardian talks about the 1% rule - "It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will 'interact' with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it"; and


• The Pew Internet & American Life Project have released a new report on the motivations and habits of bloggers - one of their findings is that most bloggers don't view their efforts as a "public endeavour" and spend on average only 1-2 hours a week blogging.

To be honest, there is nothing surprising here but it does counteract some of the hype in this space. Its also worth (again) referencing back to Figallo's practical guidence on hosting web communities, which again is still looking pretty solid even after a few years... so even if time alone is the only barrier to blogging its unlikely we will ever see everyone writing a blog because there are clearly other factors at play.

Tags: blogging, Cliff+Figallo, Pew+Internet+&+American+Life+Project, social software