Blogs : Not Just Quantity

'One-new-blog-a-second' was always going to be the headline from this round of Technorati's biannual State of The Blogopshere report.  However, looking a little deeper into the analysis, it's clear that the growth in the quantity of consumer generated media is being matched by its quality and sophistication.  The chart here shows the posting volumes with the real world events driving the conversation indicated, including the London bombings.

As can be seen, unlike the stereotypical picture of people talking about their kittens, breakfasts, love of paper clips etc, the blogopshere is an intelligent forum with 'serious' current events defining its shape.  In other words, the blogosphere is increasingly an accurate reflection of people's lives.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the report was the analysis of tags in the blogopshere.   Tags are the simple system that people can use when creating their own content to help inform the many aggregators, like Technorati, about their interests.  In doing so, they create rich communities on the fly that allow people to find like-minded folk and communities or to keep track of the strands of an ongoing dialogue.  As the blogopshere becomes established we can expect more tools to appear that increase its vibrancy and sophistication - as tags do.

Technorati have recorded 25million blog posts with tags this year and notes that currently one third of blog posts (300k per day) include tags. Dave Sifry, the company's boss, says that no one one expected such a rapid pick up of this self-organising 'folksonomoy' or metadata system.  Tags are one way into the massive rising tide of activity that is the blogopshere that you can start investigating here.

These figures are hard proof of what every experienced blogger knows.  The blogosphere provides a forum for news, information, conversation and insight that, increasingly, makes mainstream media look complacent and slow.  But that's not to say that MSM is irrelevant.  It just needs to rethink its approach and redirect it's firepower to engage with a new forum.

Comments

[Hagsannuags]

Good luck with the site I like to utilize my difficult amendment Fresh joke! What's the saddest part of the day? Mourning.

[James Cherkoff]

Ha, ha! Thanks for the gag Hagsannuags!