Why 15 Million Is A Big Number

I've been reading the chatter about the blog world capping out at 15 million active blogs. It seems that the growth of blogging has stalled. Well I am not sure that's true if you count twittering, facebooking, flickring, yelping, and the like as blogging. I do.

But even so, when looked at in the context of the 10 to 1 rule, 15 million is a huge number.

The 10 to 1 rule says that in social media, for every 10 readers you need one content creator. So 15 million bloggers will serve 150 million blog readers. That's a ton of blog readers.

cNet suggests that the blogging bubble has burst. I don't think it's a bubble. I think its a revolution. We are taking over the media, slowly but surely. And this revolution isn't going to burst. It may morph as new tools emerge that allow people to express themselves publicly.

I think the more interesting number would be the percentage of internet audience time that is spent on social media. I am sure it's still growing (maybe exponentially) and traditional media (including cnet) is declining.

Comments

[Drew Meyers]

Couldn't agree more with your last sentence. I'm increasingly finding myself getting my news from social media and abandoning sites like the Seattle Times, CNN, and the NYT. It's definitely a growing trend.

[Conor O'Neill]

Most of the reports I've read sounds like wishful thinking from those (like CNET) who feel threatened.

I was talking to an "A-List" Blogger a few months back about our business which is built around the activities of bloggers. This person consults for some of the traditional tech web sites and I was shocked to find that he was still utterly locked into the mindset that blogging is just a useful business tool rather than a communications and self-expression revolution.

[Blake Southwood]

I stumbled onto blogging and the funniest and most unpredictable result was that I ended up reading other people's blogs. I didn't anticipate this. It did open windows into other people's lives and give me a different perspective and now I find myself reading blogs when before I thought that they were for people with no lives. I've learned for myself and for others that blogs give the people a voice that otherwise wouldn't get out.

[Blake Southwood]

This is my blog.

http://siliconvalleystartupjournal.blogspot.com/

My one angel investor suggested that it might
help me get funding for my two start-ups. He also said that you are the best VC on the planet with the best blog.

Blake

[Emil Sotirov]

No matter the means... "people to express themselves publicly" is the point really!

Many otherwise smart people have trouble understanding that the notion of "content quality" is no more defined by some pseudo-absolute reference system (as in all traditional cultural hierarchies) but by the much more fluid and context-dependent culture of multiple "flat" networks of people.

[Grand Egress]

The whole recent re-definition of "social media" strikes me as kind of silly.

To wit, the Internet/web is *by definition* 100% social media. Networking computers (or cel phones, or XBoxes, or whatever) is done for one core purpose: to facilitate socialization and communication. Otherwise, why do the connection?

So I'd argue that "the percentage of internet audience time that is spent on social media" is 100%. You can post comments on nytimes.com -- isn't that social media? Isn't email social media?

Interactive media = social media.

(As for whether "blogging" has plateaued, well, maybe, but only under that particular noemclature. The original "bulletin boards" were replaced by GeoCities and Tripod's "personal home pages" which were replaced by "blogs" which will be replaced by...?"

[Keith Teare]

I attended Rafat Ali's "The Economics of Social Media" conference in LA last week. The key discussion wasn't about the success or failure of social media. The fact that social media is rapidly growing was assumed (correctly). No, the discussion was about how to monetize it. Attendees included Yahoo, Google, Mirosoft, NBC, CBS, Fox, AOL, New York Times Wall Street Journal and many others.

Fo those interested I wrote a piece on monetizng social media that takes its starting point as the reality of "deportalization".

It is here

[Richard Giles]

Totally agreed Fred.

If Hitwise was right the other day, and "web 2.0 websites accounted for 12 percent of all US web activity for the week ending April 7, 2007," then social media is definitely eroding traditional media.

Take web 2.0 and p2p and there can't be much bandwidth left for the rest ;).

[Darren Herman]

Blogging isn't anything new. It's essentially a WSYISWG editor for a web page, a la FortuneCity, Geocities, etc. Consumer adoption has finally caught on and there is a definition around blogs. They are real. Monetization is crucial, but it's well on its way.

[Ethan Bauley]

Fred, there is an amazing research report called "The User Revolution" published by PiperJaffray that empirically proves the points you raised in the last sentence.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

download it here [6MB pdf]
I originally picked it up via Redeye VC here

[SpragueD]

"So 15 million bloggers will serve 150 million blog readers."

You're assuming 10 unique readers for every blog. In fact, the incestuous blog reading universe is probably much much smaller. The audience for the largest MSM brands is orders of magnitude larger.

The significant impact of the blogosphere is on the pressure it exerts at the edges of mainstream media. There are issues of authority and trust that will prevent "social media" from ever usurping the place of established brands.

... and I'm a blogger 'fer crying out loud.

[Bala]

I dont think there will be 10 unique visitors for each blog, they mite overlap, it depends... SO the number may be little less, but it makes sense...

[Rick]

I read a quote, once, from someone at Google/Blogger... [paraphrasing]...

The audience size of the typical Blogger blog is one: the author.

(couldn't find the link, sorry)

[ron connor]

the whole post is crystal clear and to the point. and as other comments mention, that last sentence packs a punch. blogs are growing and trad is shrinking.

heres my once of input:
i had been watching and reading blogs while putting together my approach and your blog (A VC) gave me a ah-ha moment. since i wanted to incorporate my passion (music) and my role as father on my work life (RE). you have set a fine example.

the take away for me is:
no other format or platform allows a person to offer a whole perspective from their life experience and POV as clearly, simply and easily as the blog format. and that's just a part - but a unique value added component - that trad media can't deliver.

[Mark Evans]

You're right, Fred, although I'm biased given I'm a blog network executive, who's drank the Kool-Aid. Personally, it's healthy when robust markets take a breather or catch their breath because it sets the stage for more robust growth.

Mark

[Kevin Farnham]

I usually agree with you, but this time I think you're missing an important distinction. Blogging and twittering are two very different things. Blogs are a medium for journalism; twitter, MySpace comments, etc., are not journalism.

I think Technorati's blogging data is a valid representation of what's really happening. In the developed world, real journalists are sticking with their blogs, while those who really seek social conversation with friends are dropping their blogs in favor of social networking sites.

Blogging is very different from social networking, in my view.

In my April 17 dev.aol.com/blog post (written immediately after I saw David Sifry's presentation at the Web 2.0 Expo), I noted that the growth of blogs has changed from exponential to linear, based on the data Sifry presented. I still believe this is the actual case. Blogging -- i.e., online journalism -- can be expected to become linear in its growth because its penetration into the underdeveloped world is necessarily linear, because provision of infrastructure for Web access in poor countries will advance in a relatively linear manner. Hence, those journalists, who will be tomorrow's new bloggers, will come online much more slowly than what was possible in the developed world...

I really don't think twittering counts as blogging. But, I fully agree that blogging is the new medium for journalism. Hence, it will continue to grow as more of the world's potential journalists gain access to the Web.