Who’s blogging and what the heck are they blogging about?

Ok, the latest blogging statistics are finally in. In it’s new report on The State of the Blogosphere, Technorati reveals the following breakdown of blogs topics. Note that the average amount of topics per blogger is 5.

You can overlay this data with worldwide statistics on blog usage, which Universal McCann (March 2008) found to be as follows:

• 184 million worldwide users have started a blog
• 77% of active Internet users read blogs

I found some of the demographic statistics to be particularly interesting. The most active blogging age group is 25-34 and 66% of the world’s bloggers are apparently male.

Be sure to read the full Tecnorati findings here. Is anybody else surprised at the male:female ratio?

Social Media Explanatory Diagrams and Statistics

Out of the plethora of simplified Web 2.0/Social Media Application diagrams that I’ve been “Digging” through lately and adding to my collected workshop material ; I really like the one I posted below. It provides a good breakdown (for beginners) of some of the more common applications out there along with their primary purpose.

I also like this diagram from Forrester Research, on the various segments (by usage behaviour and age) of social media.

Finally, the graph below illustrates specific usage among the general aggregate U.S. online population vs. U.S. youth (ages 12-21).   Canadian patterns are quite similar, although we have higher relative usage of social networks such as Facebook (when you look at % of overall population).

I figured I’d post these up for you, since by the time I get around to using them , there will likely be a whole slew of new ones that I will prefer. Let me know if any of you need something specific, I’ve got quite a hefty collection.

Do you have any favourites yourself? Let me know!

*Note to all Americans: the “ou” in the word “favourite” is intentional; that’s how we spell up here.

Cheers!

MK

Online advertising expected to take-up 18% of marketing budgets within 5 years.

Realistic or too optimistic? What do you think? Should we expect the same in Canada?

“NEW YORK — After years of interactive advertising being dominated by search and display advertising and e-mail programs, new outlets and more sophisticated marketers portend more diverse spending in years to come, according to a new study.

Forrester Research, like nearly all ad-spending forecasts, projects marketers will shift budgets online at a quick pace in the next five years. By 2012, it expects the market will hit $61.3 billion, up from $18.4 billion in 2007. In five years, Forrester expects interactive spending to account for 18% of marketing budgets.

Forrester sees much higher spending growth in newer areas. It expects buying in the “emerging channels” category (in-game advertising, social networks, mobile) to grow from $1 billion to $10.6 billion in 2012, when it will make up 17% of all spending. Online video is set to grow from $471 million in 2007 to $7.2 billion in 2012, accounting for 12% of online marketing spending.” - Brian Morrissey , Brandweek

You can read the full article here…

It’s kind of hard to believe, especially when my province (Ontario) just spent 6 million dollars on completely ineffective 30-second commercial spots for the provincial elections/referendum. When will the government learn to stop letting ad agencies decide which marketing communications activities they should be engaging in? Until the ad agency compensation structure is changed, every ad agency will convince you that you need a TV spot. I mean common! $6 million! for what? Just imagine what that kind of budget could have accomplished if it was put towards a social media strategy.

I am bold enough to say that for 1/100th of that budget given to me personally, I could have given Elections Ontario a significantly better result. Oh well, at least we can celebrate “Family Day” now…