July 27, 2009

53% of Women Bloggers Willing to Share About Marketing to Women

A new survey by Ketchum shows that 53% of attendees to the popular BlogHer conference are willing to share information or feedback they've gathered from their blog to help better market to women.

It won't be easy, though. Almost half of those surveyed are contacted by a public relations professional at least once a week. 30% are contacted daily. Keep in mind that many of these women are very busy outside of writing their blog.

They're also not (necessarily) hard as nails journalists that PR and marketing professionals are used to pitching.

If you want to reach them, you need to offer a personal approach. Here's what survey participants had to say about being pitched:

Take the time to read their blogs and understand their areas of focus. Many women bloggers said they would like to hear about news and products that better match their specific interests.
This applies to location, too. A number of respondents said they receive communications about products and events not available in their regions or even their countries.
Know that they are "more than their blog" -- they have other roles in addition to being a mom or a blogger, say respondents, including jobs outside the home.
Similarly, don't assume that all women bloggers are "mommy bloggers."

What do you think of Ketchum's survey? Share your thoughts on marketing to women in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 23, 2008

Technorati Releases State of the Blogosphere 2008 Report

Technorati has started releasing the State of the Blogoshpere 2008 report. It will be a couple of more days before the full report is online.

The previous report was release in April 2007, so a lot has changed in the past year-and-a-half. Here are just some of the highlights:

Blogs are now a pervasive part of our daily lives. While there have been a number of studies conducted that tried to understanding the size of the Blogosphere -- both in terms of the number of blogs and blog readership -- all of these studies agree that blogs are now a global phenomenon that is "mainstream."

Technorati cites the numbers from three of the studies, which vary in the details but generally agree that "blogs are here to stay."

comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008) o Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US o Total internet audience 188.9 million

eMarketer (May 2008) o 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users) o 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)

Universal McCann (March 2008) o 184 million have started a blog worldwide, 26.4 million have started a blog in the US o 346 million read blogs worldwide, 60.3 million read blogs in the US o 77% of active Internet users read blogs

Other findings include this: "All blogs are not created equal." There are only 76,000 blogs with a Technorati Authority of 50 or higher.

The majority of bloggers that Technorati surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it's paying off. The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month.

Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. And one-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates.

There's lots more data -- and some eye-catching charts like the one above. Check out Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 for yourself.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 22, 2007

Yahoo!, Google and Bloglines Dominate Web-based RSS Reader Market

Recent discussions on changes in RSS subscriber reporting at FeedBurner as a result of Google's starting to report Google Reader and Google Personalized Homepage subscribers have prompted Rick Klau at FeedBurner to post an analysis of how people are reading feeds and interacting with them.

The FeedBurner analysis is based on 604,533 feeds managed by FeedBurner on behalf of 347,000 bloggers, podcasters and commercial publishers. FeedBurner notes that the service sees more than 3,000 feed reading clients on a regular basis. There is adequate data in a sample of this size to gauge the impact of the various aggregators whose subscriber data FeedBurner publishes.

Because FeedBurner provides stats on item views and clicks, the service can provide a sense of audience engagement level based on the client used. Are users of one client reading the posts more than users with a different client? Are these users clicking back to the original site in smaller or greater numbers? Rick Klau of FeedBurner addresses these issues in an extended post filled with documentation. He notes that:

Looking at engagement across the top web-based aggregators, several top readers are driving the lion's share of clicks and views back to our publishers' content. In clicks, Yahoo! (54%) leads the pack. This is not surprising since users of Yahoo! are presented just headlines with links to the content. My Yahoo!, Google Reader/Personalized Homepage, Bloglines and Netvibes - account for 95% of all web aggregator clicks to FeedBurner publisher's content.

For views the FeedBurner sample shows that Google Reader, Bloglines, NewsGator and Netvibes - account for 98% of all item views. It should be noted that how an aggregator chooses to display a feed in the reader can influence the number of views recorded.

There are several conclusions can be drawn from this data. First, the Google Reader has rapidly grabbed a significant share of the market. The intricacy of the data shows that there are number of variables that must be taken into consideration in reporting feed consumption. Finally, this post just looks at users consuming feeds in Web-based aggregators. Feeds are so flexible that these readers just cover a small portion of the consumption methods available. Today readers consume content in a number of different places -- directly from the content provider's site, through a feed-reading client, within a widget, via resyndicated headlines on another site, or on a social-networking site.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 5:18 PM | Permalink

October 12, 2005

Some Interesting Stats on RSS Usage

With the major search players finally getting into feed and blog search in a big way, a new study from Yahoo and Ipsos suggests that the majority of users still aren't even aware of the technology, let alone using it. People who are using RSS tend to be younger, savvier internet users who use it to track news, entertainment and other sources of information, rather than blogs. More on the survey and its results in today's SearchDay article, Study: RSS Still Not Widely Adopted.

Postscript: See also More Use RSS Than Have Heard Of It at ClickZ for some nice charts, in particular the RSS products most used by RSS savvy readers.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:09 AM | Permalink

October 7, 2005

How Many Feeds Really Matter: Part 2, New Numbers from the Bloglines Database

Today at Web 2.0, Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves, updated his "What Feeds Matter" blog post from July using some new numbers obtained by mining the Bloglines database. Jim has been nice enough to let us post them. You can find his PowerPoint stack here.

According to the numbers Lanzone shared today: + Currently, 1.3 million feeds in the Bloglines database have at least one subscriber, what Jim calls, "blogs that matter." Why? Someone has made the effort to subscribe to them. + 36,000 feeds "really matter" since they have 20+ subscribers. Lanzone calls these feeds the ones that "really matter." Of course, Jim's comment was tongue-in-cheek. + 14,363 feeds have at least 50+ subscribers. These feeds "really really matter." Again, another tongue-in-cheek comment. + 437 feeds have at least 1000+ (aka "totally sweet" feeds) Lanzone said jokingly. + 60 feeds have at least 5000+ + 1 feed has 50,000+ subscribers (which one? Slashdot)

More about Jim's thoughts about why these blogs/feeds matter in his original July blog post that also includes some good comments from Findory's Greg Linden.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:08 PM | Permalink

August 16, 2005

Feedster Launches Top 500 Blog List

Sure to fuel upset among those not listed and joy for those who are, Feedster has launched a new Feedster Top 500 list of what it considers the "most interesting and important blogs."

Well, more accurately, the rankings appear to be heavily based on which blogs get the most links, though over what period links are counted (a day? a week? a month?) and where (only in feeds? only in feeds Feedster sees? links from across the entire web?) isn't said on the list itself.

A press release reveals that some time period is taken into account, though what isn't said. Freshness is also apparently a factor, and "non-blogs" have been dropped. That probably wipes out Slashdot, which I've never consider a blog but which often makes other lists. "Professional news sites" have also been dropped, though plenty of the blogs I see are just as "professional" as news sites but because they were born of being blogs, they get a free ride. Engadget tops the list and is pretty much a "professional news site" in my book.

A quick skim shows that among search-related blogs, John Battelle makes it at 139, the Yahoo Search Blog ranks 197 and Barry Schwartz's Search Engine Roundtable squeaks in at 500. We apparently suck and don't make the list at all.

Then again, perhaps Feedster sucks a bit. I mean check this out. There's Feedster picking up our Atom feed that we don't list on our site but do publish for those who go looking -- and for whatever reason, that feed isn't showing as having entries according to Feedster since late July (it does, matching our regular feed in freshness, actually). Feedster's also picked up another feed we had out in November, published probably accidentally and never put on our site. What it doesn't list is our actual main feed URL, despite me having claimed this. I know Feedster has it in the system, but I suspect they don't count it properly in some way.

Postscript: Via Threadwatch, Feedster's Scott Rafer says on his blog that links are counted over time (I take that to mean all time) but only blogs with actual posts in the last seven days get ranked.

Postscript 2: Gary notes the quality content on entry 191, which looks to exist only to grab search engines through keyword stuffing. From the latest post:

Finding a New York lawyer is a pretty tricky task. The mental attitude of most New York is naturally very aggressive. This requires a New York lawyer to be even more forceful than lawyers in other parts of the country. This stereotype can be seen all over the media, in television shows and movies that show a high powered New York lawyer. While many non-New Yorkers are quick to assume that this stereotype is false, if you were to ask a New York lawyer if there was any truth to it, they would probably say that there was. Despite the fact that a New York lawyer will almost surely be more aggressive than a lawyer from a different city, there are still certain things you will want to look for when searching for a New York lawyer.

The content is topped by Google AdSense ads and has all the feel of the WordPress spam that got booted back in March. But perhaps Feedster's top list has a good feel on the blogosphere, considering the continued rise in blog spam for search ranking purposes.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:42 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2005

Nielsen//NetRatings: 11% of Blog Readers use RSS

The results of a new study out today from Nielsen/NetRatings (PDF) shows that 11% of blog readers use RSS to access headlines and read blog content. I would have thought the number would have been somewhat higher amongst blog readers given the amount of attention RSS gets in the blogosphere. I would also be interested to learn how "blogs" were defined since more and more non-blog sites are now offering RSS feeds.

From the survey:

Nearly five percent of blog readers use feed aggregation software and more than six percent use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS feeds from blogs.
The majority of respondents to the survey were less familiar with RSS feeds. Among the other respondents, 23 percent understood RSS but did not use it, while 66 percent either did not understand the technology or had never heard of it.

Use of RSS Feeds, June 2005 Survey Response Percent of Respondents I use feed aggregation software to monitor RSS feeds for blogs------4.9% I use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS feeds for blogs----6.4% I?ve heard of RSS and know what it does but don?t use RSS feeds----23.0% I?ve heard of RSS but don?t know what it does----------------------15.7% I?ve never heard of RSS before today-------------------------------50.0%

Last month, a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life project showed that only 9% of those surveyed had a "good idea" of what the term RSS means.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:36 PM | Permalink

August 8, 2005

On PubSub's New LinkRanks Service

Erick Schonfeld from Business 2.0 has chatted with PubSub's CEO, Bob Wyman and offers a preview of their soon to be released, new and improved LinkRanks service.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:40 PM | Permalink

July 20, 2005

Survey Results Show Most Americans Have No Clue About RSS

A new data brief from the Pew Internet & American Life project titled: The average American internet user is not sure what podcasting is, what an RSS feed does, or what the term phishing means, looks at the results of a just completed survey.

The results show only 9% of those surveyed had a "good idea" of what the term RSS means. 65% weren't sure and 26% had never heard of the term.

Only 13% of those surveyed had a "good idea" of what a podcasting is.

Those of us who watch the web, web tools, and web search closely (including myself) often forget that many of the things we talk about all day, everyday (and the services we use) still aren't even close to making it into the vocabulary or onto the desktops of the masses.

As the survey's discussion points out, technology terms and ideas take time to emerge in the mindset of the general public. However, I often wonder if the usefulness that so many leading edge types believe that syndication, feeds, etc. offer are to reach the mainstream, calling it something other than RSS (as see on on many web sites) might be worthy of consideration. Of course, the cynical person in me wonders if the public even cares, will ever care, or really needs to know about RSS and other tools in the first place.

Thanks to SC for the tip.

Postscript: Lee Rainie, Project Director, of the Pew Internet & American Life Project saw my post and sent along a comment. He writes: I think your take on it [the survey] is perfect. It's useful to remember every once in a while that lots of people don't obsessively focus on the things that fire the imagination of bleeding edgers.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:10 PM | Permalink

July 19, 2005

How Many RSS Feeds Really Matter?

Everyday we read estimates of the total number of blogs and feeds out there. Of course, we rarely get solid definitions of just what a blog is. Does every feed belong to a blog? Do blogs or feeds that haven't been updated in x amount of time count? Do all the sites that post totals use the same criteria? I'm sure you've asked these and other questions. Just like total the database sizes that we see from some web engines, total blog and feed numbers are primarily marketing tools.

Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves, has just posted some interesting numbers and graphs on the Ask.com Blog that reveal the total number of feeds that have at least one subscriber who access the feed with Bloglines.

Lanzone believes this is a more accurate number of the total amount of feeds since someone has taken the time to subscribe to it. He calls these, "feeds that matter."

According to Bloglines members around the world, 1,121,655 feeds ?matter? to date. Note this includes only content feeds tracked, and not topics tracked via ?saved? or ?persistent? searches using the Bloglines service.

Findory's Greg Linden adds an excellent comment to the post saying that a feed might need more than a single to subscriber to really "matter." He thinks 20 subscribers might be a better number to use. I think Greg makes an excellent point. Lanzone promises more breakdowns in the near future. I would also like to see how many of these 1 million plus feeds are updated at least once or twice a month.

I'll add that in some cases Bloglines has more than one feed listed for the same blog. I can speak from experience on this one since Bloglines currently lists seven feeds (one official, others unofficial, several broken) for my ResourceShelf site. All of these feeds have at least one subscriber.

Bottom Line? This post is worthy of your attention and, at the least, helps to provide a more realistic idea about the number of feeds out there.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:58 PM | Permalink

December 15, 2004

Most Cited Blogs and News Items of 2004

Intelliseek's weblog intelligence and search service, BlogPulse, has just published their list of the most cited items, weblogs, news sources, and personalities of 2004.

No. 1 "blogged" news item The transcript of comedian Jon Stewart's not-so-funny October debate with CNN "Crossfire" hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala

Most Cited News Source Yahoo! News

Most Cited Blog Boing Boing

Most Cited Web Site Hello.com

Posted by Gary Price at 1:27 PM | Permalink

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