The Practices and Popularity of British Bloggers

Dr Sarah Pedersen and Dr Caroline Macafee

What is a blog?

• Developed in late 1990s• Early filter blogs limited to those with necessary programming

skills• Build your own blog software lead to explosion in the

blogosphere• Blogs – short, dated posts collected on one web page and

ordered chronologically. May include links to other blogs or other websites.

• Popularity in blogging defined in terms of incoming links.

Methodology

• Questionnaire survey and content analysis of 48 British blogs• Using blog-tracking websites globeofblogs.com and Britblog• Bloggers had to be over 18, writing in English and resident in

UK

Length of time blogging

<6

mon

ths

6 m

on

ths

-1

year

1-2

years

2-3

years

>3

years

02468

10121416

WOMEN

MEN

ALL

Average hours spent blogging in previous week compared to employment and education commitments

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

time and ahalf

full time part time none

WOMEN

MEN

ALL

Chosen blog host

Blo

gger

Gre

ymat

ter

Live

jour

nal

Man

icfis

h

Mov

eabl

eTyp

e

MS

N

Typ

epad

Wor

dpre

ss

none

not

know

n

05

10152025

3035

women

men

all

Sophistication of blog design

1 2 3 4 5

0

5

10

15

20

women

men

all

1 Unmodified2 Pasting into template or adding images 3 Adding artwork/deleting or modifying ‘about me’ 4 Template redesigned5 Custom design

Number of blogs in Technorati top ranks

1 2 3 4 5

0

5

10

15

20

women

men

all

Blogroll links analysed in terms of gender

Female bloggers' blogroll links

43%

46%

3% 8%

Man

Woman

Group

Unidentified

Male bloggers' blogroll links

70%

11%

10%9%

Man

Woman

Group

Unidentified

Conclusions

• British bloggers are diverse in terms of age, time spent blogging and technical ability

• High educational attainment (as in the US)• Blogging from home• Women and men approach the construction of their blog

differently• British bloggers have to work hard for international recognition.